Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a common and well-recognized neurodevelopmental disorder affecting approximately 5 in every 100 individuals worldwide. It has long been included in standard national and international classifications of disorders (especially the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Children and adults with DCD may come to medical or paramedical attention because of poor motor skills, poor motor coordination, and/or impaired procedural learning affecting activities of daily living. Studies show DCD persistence of 30–70% in adulthood for individuals who were diagnosed with DCD as children, with direct consequences in the academic realm and even beyond. In particular, individuals with DCD are at increased risk of impaired handwriting skills. Medium-term and long-term prognosis depends on the timing of the diagnosis, (possible) comorbid disorders (and their diagnosis), the variability of signs and symptoms (number and intensity), and the nature and frequency of the interventions individuals receive. We therefore chose to investigate the signs and symptoms, diagnosis, and rehabilitation of both DCD and developmental dysgraphia, which continues to receive far too little attention in its own right from researchers and clinicians.

The most common neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., developmental dyslexia, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) have been the subject of numerous neuroimaging studies, leading to certain brain regions being identified as neural correlates of these conditions, referring to a neural signature of disorders. Developmental coordination disorder (DCD), however, remains one of the least understood and studied neurodevelopmental disorders. Given the acknowledged link between motor difficulties and brain features, it is surprising that so few research studies have systematically explored the brains of children with DCD. The aim of the present review was to ascertain whether it is currently possible to identify a neural signature for DCD, based on the 14 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) neuroimaging studies that have been conducted in DCD to date. Our results indicate that several brain areas are unquestionably linked to DCD: cerebellum, basal ganglia, parietal lobe, parts of the frontal lobe (medial orbitofrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). However, research has been too sparse and studies have suffered from several limitations that constitute a serious obstacle to really addressing the question of a well-established neural signature for DCD.

If the influence of visual-motor integration (copying forms) on the quality of handwriting has been widely investigated, the influence of eye-hand coordination (tracing item) has been less well analyzed. The Concise Assessment Scale for Children's Handwriting (BHK), the Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP-2), and the section “Manual Dexterity” of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) were administered to a group of second grade children (N = 75; 8.1-year-olds). The association of visual-motor integration and eye-hand coordination are predictive of the quality of handwriting (p < . 001). These two skills should be taken into consideration when children are referred to occupational therapy for difficulties in handwriting.