Whilst most of us are familiar with how DCD affects younger children in schools, there’s limited research about what daily life looks like for adolescents with this diagnosis. The existing studies have tended to focus on children under 13, or they’ve explored only narrow areas like sports participation or gathered parents’ perspectives rather than hearing directly from the young people themselves.

This study aimed to explore the experiences of participation in daily activities among adolescents with DCD. The researchers specifically wanted to understand both the strengths and challenges these young people experience in across multiple occupational domains which included activities of daily living, household chores, community mobility and driving, education, work, and leisure and social participation.

Methods

The study completed a secondary analysis on previously collected data. For those unfamiliar with secondary analysis, this is a research approach uses existing data to addressing new research questions beyond the original study’s scope.

The researchers recruited adolescents with DCD, aged 13 to 18 years, through a professional clinic and social media using purposive sampling. To be eligible, participants needed to score at or below the 15th percentile on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition, indicating motor impairment, and obtain scores within the DCD range on either the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire or the Adolescents and Adults Coordination Questionnaire.

The final sample of 11 included two girls and nine boys. Most participants presented with at least one co-occurring condition—six had ADHD, one had an anxiety disorder, and one had a specific learning disorder, according to parent report. Interviews were conducted via Zoom.

Results

The analysis revealed cross-domain participation patterns characterised by effortful performance and inefficiency, where the exertion of significant effort often didn’t lead to successful outcomes. I’ll run through the results in the domain areas as presented in the article.

Activities of Daily Living

Some challenges were noted and no strengths were identified.

Nine participants described difficulties with dressing for example, putting on a shirt the right way, buttoning, tying shoelaces. One 13-year-old participant, Aiden, explained: “I put on a shirt, and I can’t tell where the tag is, like, which side is the front, and which is the back.”

Eight mentioned grooming challenges, including tasks such as hair gathering, drying hair, shaving, and forgetting to brush one’s teeth, with one noting that shaving took time to learn and he still wasn’t completely confident.

Nine participants struggled with eating neatly because of difficulties using utensils, with some preferring to eat with their hands but feeling embarrassed in social situations. Finally, ten participants mentioned that executing morning routines was slow and often caused them to be late to school.

Household Chores

All 11 participants engaged in various home chores like unloading the dishwasher or walking the dog without difficulty. However, ten struggled with organising personal belongings and keeping spaces tidy. Nine mentioned challenges with cooking, particularly following recipe steps, organising kitchen space, or remembering to turn off appliances. Sofia, aged 15, described how getting a new stove this completely threw off her ability to make a dish she’d previously managed, ending up with “this gross mush of couscous. It was really discouraging and disappointing.”

This aligns with many of my experiences with children and literature that identifies new tasks, or changes to tasks as a sticking point for those with DCD. Participants also noted that it took a long time to learn the steps of household maintenance activities.

Community Mobility and Driving

All participants mentioned difficulties finding their way to both familiar and unfamiliar places and using public transport, attributing this to poor spatial orientation. Ben, aged 15, shared: “I get lost everywhere, even in my neighbourhood… Just last week, I missed my stop because I got confused at the station and went too far.”

Five participants had started learning to drive or obtained licences, noting they required numerous lessons because of difficulties managing multiple vehicle controls whilst maintaining attention to the road.

Education

Interestingly, most participants described success in school, with some even mentioning it as their area of strength. Alex, aged 17, said: “School is the area I’m best at, luckily.” However, ten mentioned handwriting as a significant challenge, describing inconsistent outcomes despite considerable effort. They struggled with writing pace, letter formation, legibility, organisation on the page, and letter size.

Nine participants mentioned struggling with drawing graphs or geometric shapes—something particularly relevant for science and maths classes. Seven noted challenges with independent organisation around learning, including finding classrooms, remembering assignment due dates, and keeping track of belongings.

Work

Experiences with paid work varied considerably. Two participants performed excellently with no difficulty. Two others described that whilst it took time to learn tasks, they eventually managed well. However, four described very poor performance, primarily in service roles requiring equipment operation under time pressure. Alex’s experience was particularly striking—fired after two shifts at an Chinese restaurant, he recalled: “I don’t know how bad you can be at that, but apparently I wasn’t good enough… It was really frustrating, I cried afterward.”

Leisure and Social Participation

All participants engaged in varied leisure activities they enjoyed, both structured and unstructured. However, seven mentioned poor performance in leisure activities involving motor coordination such as playing music, horseback riding. Five expressed strong interest in sports, noting they enjoyed and performed well in individual sports like running but found team sports challenging. All 11 described motor challenges that made participation in team sports difficult.

Most participants had friends and participated in social activities to their satisfaction. Six said their social skills were above average, with some highlighting emotional intelligence as a strength. Jacob, aged 18, shared: “I’ve always felt this quality that sets me apart from others—I have developed emotional intelligence.”

Practical Takeaways

For those of us working in schools, this research offers several important insights. Firstly, it’s crucial to recognise that adolescents with DCD continue to experience significant participation challenges across domains, not just in the classroom. The finding that education emerged as a relative strength is particularly relevant—it suggests that when activities align with personal interests and don’t rely heavily on motor coordination, these young people can excel.

The handwriting and graph-drawing difficulties have direct implications for classroom accommodations. Given that participants described significant effort that didn’t translate to quality outcomes, advocating for access to technology and alternative methods of demonstrating knowledge becomes even more important. I think it is more and more common for children to be able to use laptops and tablets in schools, something that is likely really supportive for our young people with DCD.

The organisational challenges at secondary included difficulty finding classrooms, remembering due dates, keeping track of belongings. This suggest these students might benefit from explicit organisational supports rather than assuming these skills will develop naturally over time, something that OTs are well positioned to support.

Perhaps most importantly, this research highlights the emotional consequences of performance difficulties, particularly in socially visible tasks. Understanding that these young people may experience frustration, stress, and embarrassment should inform how we approach intervention and support. I think this is the first study I’ve read primarily focusing on adolescents, but the results align with much of the data I’ve read on adult’s perspectives. Overall, it helps us to understand the strengths and needs of individuals with DCD across the lifespan, and to advocate for continued support especially at times of change and participation in new activities like secondary school transition, starting a job and learning to drive.

A second study by Tal-Saban was published in Scientific Reports titled The sensory profile of students with probable developmental coordination disorder (DCD).

This study compared sensory profiles of university students with probable DCD to typically developing peers, finding significant sensory processing difficulties across all sensory systems except taste/smell. Poorer self-regulation in students with pDCD was strongly associated with greater sensory processing challenges, elevated ADHD symptoms, and increased emotional reactivity.

This randomized controlled trial examined virtual reality intervention combined with conventional occupational therapy for children with DCD, finding significant improvements in motor, cognitive, and sensory-perceptual skills and activity levels. Results demonstrated stronger effects across all measured areas when VR was added to conventional therapy. As VR systems become less expensive, higher quality and more ubiquitous this is an area I think we all should be more aware of as occupational therapists.

This study examined quality of life in children with ADHD, DCD, and co-occurring ADHD+DCD, finding that children with either disorder alone showed comparable reductions in quality of life. Those with co-occurring ADHD+DCD often presented with lower quality of life than children with either condition in isolation, particularly in parent-report measures.