Read the full report by Aunnika D Short, Huilin Chen, Victoria Hulks and Gaia Scerif tu. 

Early interventions in motor skills development in neurodivergent children have been proven to benefit them greatly as they grow older. Motor skills are critical for children to interact and engage with the outside world. There is an inextricable link between developmental domains in early childhood. Non-pharmacological motor interventions have revealed positive outcomes in areas such as executive function, academic success and language development while also potentially lessening the risks associated with some pharmaceutical interventions. In essence, motor interventions are an important first step in supporting neurodivergent children with societal integration and inclusion. 

This systematic review, which explores transferability of skills involved in motor interventions and their effectiveness, asked two major questions: what are the common characteristics of effective interventions and those of ineffective interventions; and what skills are targeted in interventions? 

The results show that there is a level of transferability to non-clinical settings for interventions that are affordable, effective and require minimal equipment. The researchers were sensitive to the fact that supporting a child with a disability requires rigorous scheduling and a huge time commitment. They gathered that it is important for interventions to empower families to work on their unique goals for their child, including operating on their own timelines. With regards to time commitment, interventions were shown to be most effective when implemented twice a week, while interventions were less effective if they were too frequent or infrequent. 

There were interesting observations in the impact of the parents’ presence during the interventions. While some children improved when their parent was present, other studies did not show changes or a decrease in motor skills, potentially resulting from distractibility or an inclination to use familiar motor skills rather than new ones. Interventions largely targeted gross motor skills rather than fine motor skills. The focus on gross motor skills over others is justified given that gross motor skills are the foundation to attaining fine motor milestones. 

The systematic review encourages researchers to understand why familiarity with the environment may be beneficial for some children while it promotes pre-established behaviours for others. It also urges practitioners to provide resources to families to begin home-based interventions to save money and time. The review also supports narrower research targeting various population groups, age ranges, intervention methods and diagnoses.