Recruiting

tDCS & Motor Learning

Sponsor:

University of British Columbia

Code:

NCT04490187

Conditions

Developmental Coordination Disorder

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 7 - 12

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Motor Learning

Study Details

Brief summary:

Children with a neurodevelopmental condition called developmental coordination disorder (DCD) struggle to learn motor skills and perform daily activities, such as tying shoelaces, printing, riding a bicycle, or playing sports. Evidence suggests that motor-based interventions combined with non-invasive brain stimulation to the motor cortex (transcranial direct-current stimulation, tDCS) has been effective in improving motor skills in children with cerebral palsy and other neurodevelopmental disorders, but few studies have examined tDCS in chidlren with DCD. The purpose of this randomized, blinded, sham-controlled interventional trial is to explore the effectiveness of anodal tDCS over M1 combined with a motor learning task in increasing motor skill learning in children with DCD.

Conditions

Developmental Coordination Disorder

Study ID

NCT04490187

Start date

Sep 27, 2018

Status verified date

Jul, 2020

Completion date

Jun, 2021

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Jun, 2021

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 7 - 12

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • a score of ≤5th percentile in Manual Dexterity composite of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2), as we are focusing on fine motor tasks in the study (Henderson 2007)
  • meet DCD criteria on the DCD Questionnaire (Wilson 2007)
  • right-handed as per the Edinburg Handedness Inventory (Oldfield 1971)

Exclusion Criteria:

  • born preterm (gestation week<37 weeks)
  • diagnosed with any other neurodevelopmental disability such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (except ADHD)
  • history of any neurological disorders
  • taking any neuropsychiatric medications
  • history of migraines
  • having a scalp or skin condition (e.g., psoriasis or eczema)
  • having a metallic implants (e.g., surgical clips or pacemaker)
  • history of seizure or epilepsy

Study Design

Enrollment

14 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Active tDCS stimulation

tDCS will be applied over the left motor cortex at 1 mA for 30 min. The current will be ramped up to 1 mA over 45-60 s, held for 30 min, and ramped down to 0 mA over 45-60 s.

sham comparator: Sham tDCS stimulation

tDCS will be ramped up and held for only 60 s before it is slowly ramped down. This procedure, called the Fade-in-Short Stimulation-Fade out, has shown its reliability as an effective sham technique through making the same tolerability and transient scalp sensation as active stimulation in both adults (Ambrus 2012) and children (Ciechanski 2017).

Interventions

Motor Learning

Over three consecutive days, each child will perform five blocks of Purdue Pegboard Test: one block before, three blocks during, and one block after tDCS. Each block consists of three repetitions of Purdue Pegboard Test with the right hand. The children have to place pins into a pegboard as fast as they can in 30 seconds. It will take up to 10 minutes of brain stimulation time.

After the Purdue Pegboard Test, each child will receive cognitive-based intervention for printing skills for 20 minutes while receiving tDCS. "Printing Like a Pro!" (Montgomery 2017) -a cognitive approach to teaching printing to primary school-age children-will be used to teach letters which each child has the most difficulty printing legibly as identified on a formal assessment of handwriting-ETCH (manuscript) (Amundson 1995).

Primary outcome measure

  • Purdue Pegboard Test (Tiffin 1968) [ Time Frame: Before and after intervention; 6 weeks after intervention ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, MSc

604-875-2345saraizad@alumni.ubc.ca

Nur Eisma

604-875-2427neisma@bcchr.ubc.ca

Locations

University of British Columbia

Recruiting

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6H 3V4

Contacts

Gisela Gosse

604-875-2345ggosse@cw.bc.ca

Janet Rigney

604-875-2345jrigney@bcchr.ca

More Information

Sponsor

University of British Columbia

Last update posted

Jul 29, 2020

Last verified

Jul, 2020

Keywords

  • motor skills disorders
  • tDCS
  • task-specific intervention
  • occupational therapy

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of British Columbia on 2020-07-29.