Improved attentional abilities after playing five weeks of active video games in children with and without developmental coordination disorder

Background: Besides motor coordination problems, attentional impairments are reported in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), but the connection or trainability is still unclear. Aim: To test changes on attentional abilities after playing active video games (AVG) in children with DCD and their peers (TD), to evaluate near transfer and the relationship between omissions in attentional and motor tests. Methods: Seventy children (35 DCD; 35 TD), 7–12 years old, were assessed on three types of attention: distractibility (DIS); divided-attention (DA); sustained-attention (SA) and on the Wii Fit test pre- and post-training. Results: A significant decrease of errors in attentional tasks was found after training, independent of group (TD/DCD) and console (Wii Fit/Xbox) with medium-strong effect sizes (DIS η2p =.42; DA η2p =.51; SA η2p =.41). The groups responded similarly to the training but the DCD children scored poorer on the DA. A positive transfer-effect to the non-trained Wii Fit test was found in accuracy (missed gates), while speed proved console-specific. A medium/strong relation was found between omissions in attentional tasks and the missed gates (Wii Fit test). Conclusion: More accurate responses on attentional tasks were found after AVG-training in both groups. A clear relationship between attentional abilities and motor performance was found.