Relationship between motor and executive functioning in school-age children with pervasive developmental disorders not otherwise specified

This study examines the motor skills and executive functioning (EF) of 28 children diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; mean age: 10 years 6 months, range: 7-12 years; 19 boys, 9 girls) in comparison with age- and gender-matched typically developing children. The potential relationship between motor performance and EF in children with PDD-NOS is investigated as well. The children's motor skills were evaluated with the Movement ABC. EF, in terms of planning ability, strategic decision making, and problem solving, was gauged with the Tower of London (TOL) task. Compared with their typically developing peers, the children with PDD-NOS scored poor on the Movement ABC (p <0.01) and the TOL (p <0.05). They had significantly more definite motor problems than the normative sample of the Movement ABC: 43% (manual dexterity, p <0.001), 25% (ball skills, p <0.001), and 25% (balance skills, p <0.001). There were significant inverse relationships between manual dexterity and the TOL score (r = -0.46, p <0.01), and balance and the TOL score (r = -0.41, p