British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2000), 18, 389–413
# 2000 The British Psychological Society
Printed in Great Britain
389
Coping with clumsiness in the school
playground: Social and physical play in children
with coordination impairments
Mary M. Smyth* and Heather I. Anderson
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK
The playground activity of 110 children aged between 6 and 10 years was observed
for 10 five-minute periods. Fifty-five children were assigned to a developmental
coordination disorder (DCD) group and 55 to a control group, on the basis of their
scores on the Movement ABC. Children in the DCD group spent more time alone,
were onlookers more often, and played formal games in large groups less often if they
were boys and informal games in large groups less often if they were girls. Social
fantasy play did not differentiate between the two groups but social physical play
did, particularly in the older age groups. Play performance in the DCD group was
more variable overall with some boys taking an active part in team games while
others never took part in them. This study indicates that as social non-physical play
decreases with age, some children with impaired coordination may not become
involved in social physical play. Children with impaired coordination can become
isolated and solitary in the school playground. Various routes to social exclusion for
these children are proposed and remain to be explored.
Observation of children in a primary school playground over a period reveals that some
children are at the centre of group activities and both formal and informal games, while
others do not take part in social play, or do so only within very small groups. Some of
this variability in playground activity may be the consequence of the exclusion of
children from social groups for a range of cultural and educational reasons which
emphasize similarity and difference (Boulton & Smith, 1993), or of the shyness and
withdrawal of individual children (Coplan, Rubin, Fox, Calkins, & Stewart, 1994;
French & Waas, 1987). However, it may also be the case that some children are excluded
from particular types of play because they do not have the movement skills appropriate
to that play. Children who cannot kick a ball or ride a bicycle, or who bump into things,
may withdraw from or be excluded from games (O’Beirne, Larkin, & Cable, 1994). That
is, children with poor movement control or coordination problems may be excluded
from certain types of play for quite specific reasons, not just because they are different.
Problems in motor development can occur in children who have no identifiable
neurological impairment, have no known physical or sensory disability and do not suffer
* Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr M. M. Smyth, Department of Psychology, Lancaster
University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK.
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Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
from a general developmental delay. They learn motor skills slowly, and may be
awkward in walking, reaching, pouring and other activities of daily life. Some children
may be less capable in areas such as fine motor control, while others have greater balance
difficulties (Hoare, 1994). Although different studies have used different testing
procedures and different cut-off points in classifying children, there is a developing
consensus that around 5–6% of children may have appreciable perceptual-motor
problems (Smyth, 1992).
Many terms have been used to describe such children. They have been called ‘clumsy’,
described as suffering from ‘clumsy child syndrome’ or being ‘motorically awkward’, or
suffering from ‘dyspraxia’. The American Psychiatric Association in DSM-IV (1994) has
used the term ‘developmental coordination disorder’ for children who do not show
neurological dysfunction in a standard neurological examination but have an
impairment of coordination which is reflected in poor purposive movement, in the
absence of other intellectual or physical impairment, and there is some agreement that
developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a relatively benign term which is
accessible to parents and others concerned with the welfare of these children. In general,
it is argued that the children have a specific developmental problem in the motor
domain, rather than a more general learning difficulty (Henderson & Hall, 1982).
Several investigations now combine to suggest that children with coordination
disorder may be at risk for a variety of poor developmental outcomes, only some of
which are directly related to the motor impairment. During schooling, such children
may show passivity and lack of concentration (Lyytinen & Ahonen, 1989), poor social
competence (Losse et al., 1991), low self-esteem (Shaw, Levine, & Belfer, 1982) and
behaviour problems (Gillberg & Gillberg, 1989). Early lack of competence in perceptual
motor tasks may also be related to poor academic success in adolescence, although
Cantell, Smyth, and Ahonen (1994) suggest that this may be partly related to initial low
levels of achievement or to subjects which make greater demands on motor skills.
Perceptual motor performance improves for some children during their secondary school
years so that at age 15 they can no longer be discriminated from control children on a
range of perceptual motor tasks (Cantell et al., 1994). However, others retain their
coordination problems into late adolescence and adulthood, and social problems may
also continue (Geuze & Borger, 1993; Losse et al., 1991).
Exclusion from physical games because of coordination problems is unlikely to be the
whole explanation of the social difficulties which arise in some children with
coordination disorder. Bouffard, Watkinson, Thompson, Dunn, and Romanov (1996)
found differences in playground activity between children with movement difficulties
and others, and argued that this was because the children with movement difficulties
were less physically active, although they also found that these children spent less time
in positive social interactions with others of their own gender. Six-year-old children
with coordination disorder have been reported to be more introverted and play with
fewer other children than their peers (Schoemaker & Kalverboer, 1994). As skilled team
games are a less important part of play with younger children this may mean there are
other factors which contribute to the development of introvert behaviour in such
children.
Children who are identified as having difficulties with coordination score poorly on
tests of motor ability and there is evidence that poor performance on such tests co-occurs
Social and physical play in clumsy children
391
with other problems. These may have a large social component, such as Asperger’s
syndrome (Manjiviona & Prior, 1995; Nass & Gutman, 1997), or relate to other learning
difficulties such as specific language disorder (Powell & Bishop, 1992) or to more
general learning disabilities (Landgren, Pettersson, Kjellman, & Gillberg, 1996). There
is evidence (Levy & Gottlieb, 1984; Roberts, Pratt, & Leach, 1991) that general learning
disability may not affect the nature of play, although children with learning disabilities
play with fewer classmates than do other children. Clumsy children have been identified
as one subgroup of those with learning disabilities who are likely to be bullied more in
the playground (Whitney, Nabuzoka, & Smith, 1992). The causal account which
implicates motor ability in poor social integration across the primary school years may
be oversimplified, but even if that account is too simple, motor problems may be a good
indicator of some types of social isolation, and therefore of considerable importance in
the anticipation of social difficulties. At present there is not a great deal of direct
evidence that children with motor difficulties are excluded from play. In the present
study the main question is whether a child’s performance on a test of motor ability is
related to later involvement in both social and physical activities in the school
playground. This need not mean that any simple casual mechanism is at work, but until
it is known that there is indeed a relationship between motor abilities and play, full
accounts of the nature of that relationship cannot be developed.
The relationship between social and physical activities is important here. Physical
play has not been studied as much as other forms of play (Pellegrini & Smith, 1998), but
some highly valued forms of social play, such as team games, clearly do make
considerable physical demands. Other forms of social play, such as role-playing games,
make few physical demands. If the demands of social play become more technical and
physical for older children then it would be expected that children who at early ages are
included in social play may be subsequently excluded from social play which is also
physical play. Thus exclusion may follow perceived competence in the relevant domain.
The second purpose of the current study is to explore the relationship between the
physical demands of play and the sizes of the groups in which it takes place and how this
changes with age. The study describes the types of play engaged in by children with
coordination disorder compared with children who do not have a motor problem, and
asks whether these differences are found primarily in movement play or in play more
generally. It may be the case that in the middle primary school years, when the skill
demands of motor games increase, children are excluded from movement play and, given
the importance of movement play for this age group, this may eventually lead to more
general exclusion. This would mean that from the ages of 6 to 10, there would be
changes in both movement play and social play in children with coordination disorders.
In order to explore these hypotheses concerning poor coordination and physical and
social play, it was necessary to develop a relevant category system for play. Several
studies of play in school playgrounds have developed category systems and some have
investigated social relations and rule-bound or motor games (e.g. Boulton & Smith,
1993; Levy & Gottlieb, 1984). For boys in some playgrounds, playground games may
consist of football and rule-bound chasing games in very large groups (Boulton & Smith,
1993), with girls spending less time in rule games. Boulton and Smith report a study by
Daniels-Beirness and LeShano which found that boys spent more time in large same-sex
groups than girls, and it is possible that boys who do not take part in these games
392
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
because their skills are not good enough, spend more time in mixed-sex groups and less
time in same-sex groups. The observation of the composition of the group in which a
child is involved was therefore an important part of the present authors’ categorization.
Levy and Gottlieb (1984) have suggested that a child can be in a game but more or less
active (they use the term ‘passive’). They define ‘active’ as taking part in an activity in as
fully active a way as the activity permits, while less active children are semi-involved or
are taking a stationary role in the game. Children with coordination impairments may
be involved in rule-bound games but taking a less active role, so this distinction has
been retained for this study. Levy and Gottlieb (1984) also described a category of
sensory motor activity which has a goal of the derivation of pleasure or a sense of mastery
from physical activity. Children can be observed carrying out repeated physical activity
like handstands or throwing a ball at a wall. This is referred to here as ‘skill mastery’.
One area of interest is whether poorly coordinated children play in this way, either with
others or alone.
Other studies have focused on who initiated interaction, whether play was solitary
and whether children were onlookers who watched other children play (French & Waas,
1987; Roberts et al., 1991). The present study did not look at who initiated interaction,
since this is difficult to establish when large groups of children play formal or informal
games. It was, however, concerned to record how often children were alone or in small
groups and how often they watched other children playing. It also considered who
initiated an episode of negative social contact, identified as fighting, physical attacks or
verbal attacks. Boulton (1995) has suggested that victims spend more time on their own
and less time in rule games than other children do and, as clumsy children may be at
risk of bullying (Whitney et al., 1992) and may spend more time on their own, this
relationship could be an important one. If children are being bullied they will be
victims in negative social contact, and the present authors added modifiers to this
category which indicated whether a child was an instigator or a victim. They also
included rough and tumble play which includes play fighting (Boulton, 1996; Schafer &
Smith, 1996), tickling and rolling on the ground. It was possible that children in the
DCD group would avoid this type of physical activity as shy or withdrawn children
might be expected to do.
No other play study has had the same focus on both physical and social play as in this
project, so no categorization scheme developed in previous work was entirely
appropriate. We were concerned to describe a wider variety of types of motor play as
well as considering whether children played alone or in groups. We focused on elements
of play which were of specific interest in relation to poor coordination, including group
participation, rule games, skill mastery, negative social contact (bullying) and
onlooking. The main questions to be addressed were (1) whether children with poor
coordination were fully involved across the range of play activity or spent time by
themselves or in very small groups; (2) whether they engaged in social, but not physical,
play and whether this changed with age; and (3) whether they engaged in skill mastery
which could be physical but not social. Although it was not central to the aims of the
study, we were also concerned to include observations on negative social contact because
of the risk of bullying in children with developmental disorders.
Social and physical play in clumsy children
393
Method
Participants
The children who took part in this study were selected for another project 18 months to 2 years before
the present one. The earlier project was concerned with the development of reach and grasp in children
with coordination disorder (Smyth & Mason, 1997) and involved the identification of such children in
the English primary school system using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (the Movement
ABC; Henderson & Sugden, 1992). This method of identifying children with coordination disorder has
been used by several research groups (e.g. Mon-Williams, Pascal, & Wann, 1994) and allows some
comparison between children in different studies. Initial screening of 1277 children was carried out by
teachers using the checklist provided as part of the Movement ABC, or on less formal teacher assessments
where the checklist could not be used. In total 284 children who were identified by teachers as having
motor difficulties were subsequently tested on the motor test battery of the Movement ABC. Of these,
53 scored at or below the 5th percentile point and 38 scored at or below the 15th percentile point.
Children were also tested on two verbal sub-scales of the British Ability Scales and the selection of
children as controls was based on age, gender and verbal ability. Full details of the selection and
matching procedures can be found in Smyth and Mason (1997).
In the present study, observations were made on all of the matched pairs of children in the earlier
study who could be contacted in five of the six schools visited originally. A total of 110 children aged
between 6 and 10 was available, 55 in the DCD group and 55 controls matched on age, gender and
verbal ability. Thirty children in the DCD group scored below the 5th centile on the Movement ABC
and 25 scored between the 5th and 15th centile. These children were therefore placed in the DCD
category (below the 5th centile) or were at risk for DCD (between the 5th and 15th centile), and are
referred to here as the DCD group. All the controls scored above the 35th centile. There were 38 boys
and 17 girls in each group. The children were in Years 2 to 5 in five English primary schools in the
Lancaster and Morecambe area. Details of the participants can be found in Table 1.
Children who had been identified as having special educational needs in addition to, or other than,
clumsiness were not included in this sample. The teachers of all the children were asked if the children
had been identified as having special educational needs or were in the process of having statements of
special educational needs prepared. Three children from the original DCD group who had been
diagnosed as having special needs in relation to Asperger’s syndrome, general developmental delay and
attention deficit disorder were excluded.
Table 1. Assignment of children to groups. Mean (SD) age at the time observations were carried out, and
mean scores on the Movement ABC tested 18 months to 2 years earlier. (The maximum score on the
Movement ABC for children aged 6 and over is 18.5)
Age
DCD
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Control
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Movement ABC
N
(age
(age
(age
(age
6
7
8
9
to
to
to
to
7)
8)
9)
10)
6.98
8.04
8.93
10.01
(0.38)
(0.27)
(0.42)
(0.46)
15.54
15.15
16.36
13.68
(3.52)
(3.68)
(6.51)
(2.06)
12
17
15
11
(age
(age
(age
(age
6
7
8
9
to
to
to
to
7)
8)
9)
10)
7.12
7.98
9.01
9.96
(0.37)
(0.26)
(0.40)
(0.44)
2.86
3.21
3.93
2.91
(1.97)
(2.01)
(1.81)
(2.51)
12
17
15
11
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
394
Procedure and equipment
The first stage of the procedure was familiarization for both the children and the observer. Children were
identified from previous records for each school and the observer spent some days in each classroom
acting as a teacher’s assistant in order to identify the children. She then stood in the playground at every
break and lunchtime for 2 weeks, continuing to identify the children and making recordings which were
not used in any analysis. At the end of this period the children were accustomed to the presence of the
observer and observations began.
Each child was observed on 10 separate occasions, spread over 2 weeks. Matched pairs were observed as
closely together as possible and at the same times of the day. For 89 children all observations were on
separate days and for 21 there were two observations on one, and only one, day. Two of the schools had
short morning and afternoon breaks and a lunch break and the remaining three had a short morning
break and a lunch break but no afternoon break. Each child was observed a minimum of three times and a
maximum of five times during short breaks and a minimum of five times at lunch breaks. Each
observation period lasted 5 min and was broken into 30-s intervals. At the end of each interval the
observer recorded the child’s activity on a hand held Psion Workabout computer using a detailed coding
scheme developed in the Observer software system. Following Boulton and Smith (1993) the activity
recorded was that at the end of the 30-s interval to allow time for identification of context for an activity.
The schools were all located in built-up areas. One had a small playground and did not allow football.
One had a grass area in addition to a hard surface playground. The remainder had large hard surface play
areas, some of which were in two or more linked sections. No school provision of play equipment was
made, apart from one school which banned football but provided games equipment (soft balls, quoits,
etc.). Playground activity was not organized by adults in any of the playgrounds, although care staff were
present in all.
Coding scheme
The coding scheme was developed in two schools which were not part of the main study. The outline of
the scheme was developed in the first school and used to record play behaviour at the second. Alterations
were made to deal with the range of play activities found at the second school. In the final coding scheme
there were three types of classification (A, B and C below), with each observation falling into one
category in each type of classification.
A. Group size. There were six categories: alone, with 1 other, 2 others, 3 others, 4 others, 5–7 others or
with 8+ others.
B. Group composition. The child was coded as being in a same-sex group, a mixed-sex group, or in a group
including an adult.
C. Play activity. All activity was coded into one of nine categories, separated into three sets. The first set
of four categories refers to games with varying degrees of formality in their rule structure:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Formal team games with rules (e.g. football, netball). Children could be more or less active in
these games (e.g. running with the ball or standing waiting for a pass).
Informal team games. This category included classic playground games such as tag, British
Bulldogs, and hide and seek. Some games had a competitive element but they were essentially
games which were identifiable by name by the children and the observer. Again the child could
be more or less active (e.g. running or hiding).
Fine motor rule games (e.g. marbles, pogs, conkers).
Gross motor games with evolving rules. This category was used for activities which were not
identifiable games but had rules provided by the participants. The example from one of the pilot
schools was a type of competitive leapfrog. A child could be more or less active in these games.
The second set of categories were clearly defined activities which did not have a game structure:
Social and physical play in clumsy children
5.
6.
7.
395
Skill mastery (e.g. practising handstands or cartwheels, bouncing and catching a ball, practising
penalties but not playing in a football game, single rope skipping, practising finger string
games).
Rough and tumble play. This included tickling, pushing backwards and forwards, and rolling
on the ground or play wrestling. Children remained together after such activity and no distress
was displayed.
Negative social interaction. This was unpleasant and aggressive behaviour, either verbal or
physical, intended to hurt or offend. Physical aggressive behaviour differed from rough and
tumble play in its intensity and the emotional reactions of the participants and other children.
An observed child could be the instigator or the victim, or it might not be possible to
distinguish these.
The third set of categories was essentially a matrix. Children were not involved in a movement game or
game with rules. They could be moving (walking, running, skipping) or stationary, and they might or
might not be involved in fantasy play. A child lying on the ground could be simply doing that or being
the patient waiting for the doctor to come to visit, while a child running across the playground could
just be running or could be a spaceship coming in to land. Identification of fantasy play depended on the
recognition of contextual elements:
8a.
8b.
9a.
9b.
Moving, no fantasy (running, walking, skipping).
Moving, fantasy (being a spaceship, taking the baby to the doctor).
Stationary, no fantasy (standing, sitting).
Stationary, fantasy (being a baby, being a patient).
In analysis, these activities were separated into fantasy play (moving and stationary) and unstructured
activity. Further qualifiers were used in categories 8a and 9a, which contain the unstructured activity
which remains when all other categories have been excluded. These qualifiers identified the child as
engaged with a book or toy, onlooking (watching the play of others), or simply stationary or moving
with no further qualification possible.
Reliability. The reliability of the coding procedure was monitored throughout the year. Two second
observers were trained to use the coding scheme and for three of the schools a second observer made a
series of observations at the same time as those made by the main observer, while unaware of the child’s
group membership. One of the series of observations with two observers was in winter, one in spring and
one in summer, separated by just over three months. Calculation of Cohen’s Kappa for group size, group
composition, play activity and modifiers of play activity indicated that the observers were in agreement
(see Table 2). Where there were disagreements, the main observer’s coding was used.
Statistical analyses
There were a possible 100 separate observations for each child, scored for each of the three main
classifications of group size, group composition and activity. A few children had missing data points
because a 5-min observation period had been cut short, but no child had fewer than 90 observations. The
percentage of time observed in each category was used in the analyses. The time observed was treated
descriptively where appropriate, analysed for differences between the groups for separate measures, and
explored for relations between measures. The final analysis was a discriminant function analysis which
used a small number of variables to classify the children into the DCD group and the control group.
In the analyses of the measures, the distributions are discussed first where they are relevant. As
children tended to spend comparatively small proportions of their time in each of a range of activities,
some of the distributions were positively skewed, and some had long tails. Where there were small
numbers of observations of an activity, frequency analyses (w2) were carried out. For the categories of
gross motor games, fine motor rule games, moving with a toy or book, and stationary with a toy, there
were very few observations. Chi-square analyses were carried out on the number of children in the DCD
and control groups who were or were not observed engaging in each of these activities. There were no
significant relationships with group, and these categories are not reported further. Where there were
sufficient numbers of observations of a type of activity, square root and logarithmic transformations were
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
396
Table 2. Reliability of the coding scheme
Number
in group
School
1
2
3
Composition
of group
Activity
No. of
observations
No. of
children
Kappa
%
agreement
Kappa
%
agreement
Kappa
%
agreement
284
297
300
22
14
16
.90
.83
.80
.92
.86
.83
.89
.91
.87
.99
.96
.96
.92
.87
.76
.94
.92
.83
carried out where appropriate (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1989), before analyses of variance. Both the raw
percentages and transformed scores were analysed. Few differences in outcome were found. The analyses
of the raw scores are presented here with any alterations based on transformed scores reported where
appropriate.
In the first of the analyses for each measure, analyses of variance over group membership (group) and
year group (age) were entered for all children. As there were small numbers of girls, full crossing of
group, age and gender was not possible. Analyses of variance over group and gender were also carried out,
and separate analyses for boys and girls where appropriate. To reduce complexity in reporting the
analyses, for each variable the analyses most relevant to understanding the pattern of data are reported.
Following these analyses we present correlations between group size and play activities which occur
reasonably often, and a discriminant function analysis.
Results
Time spent alone
The first question to be addressed was whether the children in the DCD group spent
more time alone than the control children. Only three children in the total sample were
never on their own when observed, all of them in the control group. Sixteen children in
the DCD group and one child in the control group were alone more than 20% of the
time. The amount of time for which children were observed to be alone was analysed
over group and age (see Fig. 1A). There was a significant effect of group membership
(F(1,102) = 7.34, p < .01), with children in the DCD group spending more time alone,
no effect of age, and no interaction (F < 1 in both cases). In a separate analysis there was
no reliable effect of gender (F(1,106) = 1.59, P > .05) and no interaction between
gender and group membership (F < 1).
Some children in the DCD group were alone for a considerable portion of the time for
which they were observed. The mean time alone for the control group was 8.7%. A total
of 10 children were alone more than 28% of the time, which was three standard
deviations from that mean. Nine of these were in the DCD group and one (who was
alone 30% of the time observed) was in the control group. Of the nine DCD children
(seven boys and two girls), all the boys and one girl had scored below the 5th centile on
the Movement ABC. None of the children who were alone for very large amounts of
time were from the youngest age group.
Social and physical play in clumsy children
397
Figure 1. The mean percentage of observations in which children were alone, and in which boys and girls
were in social groups of different sizes.
Time spent with other children
Children were recorded as playing in groups of five different sizes (from 2 children up to
8+ children). There was considerable variability and some skew in all the distributions
although group sizes 2 to 5–7 approximated to normality, but group sizes of 8+ did not.
Some children spent large amounts of time in such large groups while others were never
in them. Mean amounts of time spent in different size groups can be found in Figs 1B
and 1C for boys and girls separately.
Analysis of variance of the percentage of time spent in groups of different sizes over
the two groups of children (DCD/control) and the five group sizes (2, 3, 4, 5–7 or 8+
children in a group) indicated that the groups differed (F(1,108) = 8.71, p < .01), as
398
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
did the frequency with which children were observed in groups of different sizes
(F(4,432) = 4.58, p < .01), and that there was a significant interaction between the two
(F(4,432) = 2.43, p < .05). When the data were transformed the main effect of group
remained, as did the interaction, but the overall effect of group size was reduced
(F(4,432) = 2.21, p = .067). Simple main effects analysis indicated that the children in
the DCD group spent more time with one other child and less time in groups of 8+ than
children in the control group.
The group size effect was strongest in boys, some of whom spent large amounts of
time in large groups playing football. Girls as a whole spent less time in groups of 8+
than did boys. The analyses of variance for group and group size were repeated for boys
and girls separately. For girls (17 per group), there was a marginal effect of group
(F(1,32) = 3.97, p = .055), a significant effect of group size (F(4,128) = 6.07, p < .01)
and no interaction (F(4,128) = 1.07). After transformation, the group size effect
remained reliable (F(4,128), = 9.16, p < .01). Girls spent less time overall in groups of
8+ than in any other group size. For boys (38 per group), the analysis revealed a pattern
much more similar to that shown for the group as a whole, with a significant difference
between the groups (F(1,74) = 5.72, p < .05), group size (F(4,296) = 9.82, p < .01),
and a significant interaction (F(4,296) = 2.55, p < .05). After transformation all effects
remained reliable, including that of group size (F(4,296) = 5.08, p < .01). While boys
spent more time in groups of 8+, simple main effect analyses indicated that boys in the
DCD group spent more time with one other child and less time in groups of 8+ than
boys in the control groups.
Group composition
The mean amount of time spent in groups of different gender composition is shown in
Table 3. Analysis of variance indicated that most children spent their playtime in singlesex groups (F(2,106) = 524.4, p < .001). There was no significant interaction between
DCD and control group membership and the composition of groups in which children
spent time (F < 1). There was an interaction between sex and amount of time spent in
different types of group (F(2,212) = 4.47, p < .05), and simple main effects analysis
indicated that girls spent less time than boys in single-sex groups (F(1,106) = 6.07,
p < .05). The three-way interaction was not significant (F < 1). There was no evidence
that boys in the DCD group spent more time in mixed-sex groups than boys in the
control group.
Participation in structured play activity
Formal team games. Only three girls spent any time at all playing formal team games.
One was observed to be doing so once and one was observed twice in 100 observations.
The remaining girl was engaged in formal team games on 43% of observations. These
were mainly occasions in which she was on a football pitch, but taking a ‘less active’ role.
Although netball and other formal team games were played in the pilot schools visited,
in the five schools used in this study girls did not play formal team games.
The means and standard deviations for the percentage of time boys spent in the active
and less active formal team categories are shown in Fig. 2A. Analysis of variance over the
two factors of group and active/inactive role indicated that there was a significant
Social and physical play in clumsy children
399
Table 3. Mean percentage of time observed in groups of different composition: same
sex, mixed sex, or with an adult present
Boys
DCD
Control
Girls
DCD
Control
Same sex
Mixed sex
Adult
82.26 (17.43)
84.80 (16.05)
15.71 (17.44)
13.08 (15.32)
1.87 (2.27)
2.03 (2.51)
76.00 (17.91)
73.95 (16.13)
19.76 (19.16)
19.25 (15.00)
3.94 (3.58)
6.79 (10.58)
difference between the groups (F(1,74) = 4.85), p < .05), and that boys were observed
in the less active group more often than in the more active group (F(1,74) = 30.47,
p < .001), but that there was no significant interaction between these factors
(F(1,74) = 1.96, p > .05).
As formal team games in these observations always involved football, these data were
affected by the fact that one school did not allow football in the school playground.
When this school was removed a total of 62 boys remained. The mean amount of time
spent by these boys in playing football is shown in Fig. 2B for the four age groups.
Analysis of variance over group and age indicated that there was a main effect of group
(F(1,54) = 5.49, p < .05) and of age (F(3,54) = 13.05, p < .001) with no interaction
(F(3,54) = 1.25, p > .05). Boys played football more often in older age groups and boys
in the control group played more frequently than boys in the DCD group. These
outcomes were not affected by transformations applied to the data. It should be noted,
however, that although the interaction was not significant, the very youngest boys in the
DCD group actually had a higher mean than the boys in the control group. This does
not result in an interaction because of the small number of children in Year 2 in this
analysis (four per group). There was no clear indication of difference between the amount
of time spent in football by the boys from the two groups in the youngest age band. It
should also be noted that children in the DCD group were much more variable in the
amount of time spent playing football than the control group children, especially at
older ages.
Informal team games. Girls and boys played informal team games for differing amounts of
time. The mean percentages of time spent in these games are shown in Figs 2C and 2D.
For boys, informal team games were played less often than for girls (33% of boys never
played these games as opposed to 15% of girls, and 50% of boys played these games 3%
of the time or less). For the girls, all of the children who never played these games were
from the DCD group, while for the boys the numbers were fairly similar for the two
groups (DCD = 11 boys, control = 14 boys).
For the boys, analysis of variance over group and active/inactive role indicated that
there was no effect of group (F < 1), that the difference between active and less active
roles was not significant (F(1,74) = 3.58, p > .05) and there was no interaction (F < 1).
For the girls there was a significant effect of group (F(1,32) = 4.89, p < .05), no effect
of active/less active roles (F(1,32) = 2.48, p > .05), and a significant interaction
400
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
Figure 2. The mean percentage of observations in which children were engaged in formal and informal
team games. In B, boys attending a school in which football was not permitted are excluded.
between the two (F(1,32) = 4.21, p < .05). The difference between the girls with DCD
and control group girls was greatest in the more active component of the informal team
games. There were no differences between the activity of girls in different ages groups
(F < 1) and no interaction of group and age (F(3,26) = 1.08, p > .05). Informal team
games were played more commonly by girls than boys in this sample, and girls in the
DCD group played these games less often than girls in the control group.
Participation in less structured play activity
Skill mastery. The mean percentage time spent in skill mastery for boys and girls in the
two groups is shown in Fig. 3A. A two-factor analysis of variance over sex and group,
with unequal cell sizes, indicated that girls spent longer on skill mastery than boys
Social and physical play in clumsy children
401
(F(1,106) = 5.16, p < .05), but there was no difference between the groups (F < 1) and
no significant interaction (F(1,106) = 2.51, p > .05). Although the means suggest that
control girls practise skill mastery more than girls in the DCD group, this difference
was not reliable (F(1,32) = 1.11, p > .05). Age had no effect on skill mastery for the
boys and girls together (F < 1), or for boys (F < 1) and girls (F = 1.04) separately. Skill
mastery play was more common in girls, but was equally common in children in the
DCD group and control children. Using the amount of time spent alone as a covariate in
these analyses did not alter the outcomes.
Rough and tumble play. Large numbers of children (76% of boys and 59% of girls) took
part in rough and tumble play at some time, although the total amount of time spent
was not high. Although girls were involved in rough and tumble (which included
tickling), they were not observed playing in this way very often: 90% of the girls who
did engage in rough and tumble spent less than 5% of the time observed in this way.
For boys, 42% of those who did engage in rough and tumble spent more than 5% of the
time observed in this way, indicating that some boys indulge in rough and tumble quite
frequently. The mean percentages of time spent in rough and tumble for the boys and
girls in the two groups are shown in Fig. 3B. Analysis of variance indicated that there
was a main effect of gender (F(1,106) = 10.58, p < .01), but no effect of group (F < 1)
and no interaction (F < 1). As the number of girls in each of the year groups was small
it was not possible to say anything about the changes in rough and tumble play for girls.
For boys, the percentage of time spent in rough and tumble play in each age group in
the control and DCD groups were compared. As before, there was no difference between
the groups (F(1,68) = 1.80, p > .05), and the age difference was marginal
(F(3,68) = 2.62, p = .057), indicating that there was less rough and tumble in the
oldest year group. There was no interaction (F < 1). If there are differences in rough and
tumble play in boys over this age range they do not differentiate between boys in the
DCD group and their controls.
Negative social contact. This category includes physical violence, fighting and verbal
abuse. In the scoring scheme it was possible to identify whether the child was the
instigator of negative social contact (NSI), the victim of negative social contact (NSV),
or engaged in a general negative social interaction with no indication of who started it
(NSG).
There were comparatively small numbers of observations of NSI and NSV. Only
seven children were ever categorized as victim in negative social contact: three of these
were children with DCD (two boys, one girl), and four were control children (all boys).
However, 21 children instigated negative social contact at least once. Of these, seven
were children with DCD (five boys, two girls), and 14 were control children (eleven
boys, three girls). Children from the DCD and control groups were split into those who
had and those who had not been observed as instigators and chi-square analysis indicated
that the increased association of instigation of negative social contact with control
children was not significant (w2 = 2.94, p > .05).
Twenty-six children were categorized as generally negative at least once. Of these, 13
were children in the DCD group (10 boys) and 13 were control (12 boys). Of the four
most extreme (that is, who were observed in general negative contact on three or four
402
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
Figure 3. The mean percentage of observations in which boys and girls were engaged in skill mastery
and rough and tumble, and the percentage of observations in which children in four age groups were
engaged in fantasy games (moving and stationary).
occasions), two were DCD and two were control: all four were boys. A total of 74
children (67%) did not instigate NS or indulge in general NS, 36 did one or the other,
and 11 of those did both. Of these 36 children (7 girls, 29 boys), 19 were control and 17
were DCD. No child scored more than 5% of the time in the combined NSI and NSG
category. No analysis (frequency analyses, analysis of variance) was able to distinguish
between the children in the DCD group and the control children in these categories.
Fantasy games. Fantasy games were divided into those which involved locomotion and
those which were stationary. Overall, 38% of children were never observed in a moving
fantasy activity and 50% were never observed in a stationary fantasy activity. Inspection
of the distributions indicated that the majority of those who never engaged in fantasy
Social and physical play in clumsy children
403
play were in Years 4 and 5. As age had a considerable effect on fantasy play, the means in
Figs 3C and 3D show two types of fantasy play for the two groups at four ages.
An overall analysis of fantasy play over group, age and moving/stationary play
indicated that there was no difference between the groups (F(1,102) = 2.11, p > .05), a
significant effect of age (F(3,1) = 10.07, p < .001) and a significant effect of type of
fantasy play (F(1,102) = 16.65, p < .001). There were no significant interactions apart
from that between age and type of fantasy play. There was no difference between
stationary and moving fantasy play for older children, who do little of either, but the
two younger groups showed more moving fantasy play than stationary fantasy play.
Years 2 and 3 did not differ on amount of fantasy play, nor did Years 4 and 5, but both
Years 2 and 3 were reliably different from both Years 4 and 5 (Tukey HSD, p < .01).
There was no difference between boys and girls in fantasy play.
As there were large numbers of zero scores in the two groups of older children, testing
between the children with DCD and the control children may be most useful in the two
younger groups. When this comparison was carried out the difference between the
control and DCD groups was not significant over the two youngest age groups
(F(1,56) = 1.46, p > .05), and the interaction with stationary/moving fantasy play was
also not significant (F(1,56) = 2.76, p > .05). Both groups of children engaged in
fantasy play when they were aged 6 to 8, but the older children did not engage in
fantasy play very often.
There was some suggestion in the data that children with DCD played fantasy games
more often than control children do. This may be cloaked or suppressed by the
observation that children with DCD are alone more often than control children. When
moving fantasy play was analysed over group and age with time spent alone as a
covariate, the main effect of group was larger (F(1,101) = 3.86, p = .052). Children
with DCD played fantasy games as often as control children, with some suggestion that
they spent proportionally more of the time spent with others playing in this way.
Participation in unstructured activity
Children spent a large part of the time in activities which were not games, rough and
tumble or skill mastery. Some of these activities, like reading a book or comic, were
recognizable activities, others were not. The two main categories of action remaining
after all the games had been removed were ‘moving’ and ‘stationary’, each qualified to
indicate that the child was using a toy or book, was watching other children play
(onlooking), or was engaged in activity which had no more specific description. These
qualifiers on moving or stationary activity were analysed separately and those which
involved reasonable numbers of observations are discussed below.
Onlooking. Onlooking was used as a qualifier for non-game activity in which the child
was moving or stationary. Very few observations were made of children onlooking while
moving. There were only 13 children who were observed to do this at least once. Of
these, six were children with DCD and seven were in the control group. Most onlooking
occurred while the child was stationary. Most children (80%) were observed to be
onlooking some of the time. In an analysis over groups and age groups the children in
the DCD group were onlookers significantly more often (F(1,102) = 9.04, p < .01), but
404
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
Figure 4. The mean percentage of observations in which children in four age groups had no toy, book or
game context while moving around the playground and the percentage of observations for which boys
and girls were onlooking or stationary with no context (see text for further description).
there were no effects of age (F < 1) and no interaction with age (F < 1). The difference
between the groups remained if time spent alone was used as a covariate in the analysis
(F(1,101) = 4.02, p < .05). The differences between boys and girls were also considered
and the mean percentage of time spent in onlooking for boys and girls in the two groups
is shown in Fig. 4A. Analysis of variance indicated that the difference between boys and
girls was not significant (F(1,106) = 3.08, p > .05) and that there was no interaction
with group (F < 1). Children with DCD were onlookers more often than control
children, and this was not affected by their age or whether they were boys or girls.
Social and physical play in clumsy children
405
Moving with no context. Children were often observed in motion with no particular
context (walking across the playground would fall into this category). The difference
between this category and onlooking while moving was that children who were
onlooking were watching a game played by others. The differences between children in
the DCD and control groups were considered over age group. The mean percentage in
each group can be seen in Fig. 4B. Analysis of variance showed that there was no
significant difference between the groups (F(1,102) = 2.97, p > .05) and no effect of age
(F(3,102) = 2.04, p > .05), but a significant interaction (F(3,102) = 3.13, p < .05).
Simple main effects analyses indicated that control children did not differ over age
group on the amount of time spent moving without a context (F(3,51) = 1.10, p > .05).
The children with DCD moved around more often with no context in Year 3
(F(1,33) = 8.60, p < .001) and Year 4 (F(1,28) = 4.32, p < .05), but not in Years 2 and
5. Some children spent considerable amounts of time moving round the playground
without being involved in a play activity, and these children tended to be in the DCD
group in the middle of the age range.
Stationary with no context or with a book. Children spent considerable amounts of time
standing, sitting, chatting, laughing and waiting, but not involved in any clear play
activity (see Fig. 4C). Analyses of variance were carried out for the two groups by age
and for the two groups by sex. In neither analysis was there an effect of group (F < 1 in
both cases), and there was no effect of age (F(1,102) = 1.03, p > .05) and no interaction
with age (F < 1). The difference between the boys and girls was significant
(F(1,106) = 45.56, p < .01), but the interaction between gender and group was not
(F < 1). Girls spent more time stationary without toys or books than did boys, but there
were no differences between the DCD and control groups.
Preliminary consideration of the frequency with which children were stationary with
a book indicated that 82% of children were never observed doing this. Children were
divided into those who were and those who were not seen with a book (reading, writing
or drawing) and chi-square analyses indicated that more girls than boys (w2 = 4.04,
p < .05), more children in Year 5 than in other years (w2 = 10.41, p < .05) and more
children in the DCD group than the control group (w2 = 3.91, p < .05) spent some
time with a book. Of the 10 boys who spent some time with a book, eight were in the
DCD group, and the group effect was reliable for boys alone (w2 = 4.14, p < .05). Boys
in the DCD group were more likely to be observed at least once with a book than were
boys in the control group.
Correlations and discriminant function analysis
The pattern of differences between the groups suggested that group size and other
activities may be related in this sample. To explore the relationships, product moment
correlation coefficients were calculated for the amount of time a child spent alone or in
groups of differing sizes, and the play activities which had a reasonable number of nonzero observations. The correlation coefficients are shown in Table 4. The patterns of
correlations are understandable in terms of the nature of each activity. Skill mastery was
least likely to be in a group of 8+, and most likely in groups of 2. Rough and tumble
did not link to any group size – it happened when children were with any other number
406
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
of children. Moving without a context was linked to being alone or in small groups of
two or three children, and being stationary without a context was linked to being in
groups of two or three. Onlooking was positively related to being alone. Informal team
games were related to being in medium size groups, and children who played in groups
of 8+ were likely to be playing football, and unlikely to be doing anything else.
Table 4. Correlations between group size and playtime activity for all children and for
the two groups separately
Group size
Alone
All children (N = 110)
Skill mastery
Rough and tumble
Moving, no context
Stationary, no context
Onlooking
Formal team
Informal team
Moving fantasy
DCD group (N = 55)
Skill mastery
Rough and tumble
Moving, no context
Stationary, no context
Onlooking
Formal team
Informal team
Moving fantasy
Control group (N = 55)
Skill mastery
Rough and tumble
Moving, no context
Stationary, no context
Onlooking
Formal team
Informal team
Moving fantasy
2
3
4
5–7
8
.184
.340** .175
.051 7.078 7.322**
7.048
.103
.229
.021 7.064 7.099
.576** .449** .326** .058 7.203 7.587**
.163
.330** .375** .194
.067 7.522**
.435** .145
.073 7.086
.015 7.316**
7.292** 7.468** 7.490** 7.418** 7.296** .910**
7.134 7.161
.088
.407** .553** 7.316**
7.091
.157
.186
.175
.218
.290
.280*
.191
.044
7.079
.072
.236
.625*
.361*
.274*
.177
.393*
.326*
.447*
.102
.059
7.336* 7.431* 7.424*
7.134 7.161
.088
7.169
.170
.117
.025
.051
7.350*
7.157
7.040
7.169
.574*
.272
7.320*
7.157
7.574*
7.472*
7.320*
.921*
7.240
7.253
.002
.568*
.350*
.146 7.200
.109
.199
.245 7.061 7.194
.446*
.528*
.393*
.201
.017
.257
.311*
.444*
.233
.258
.242
.088
.065
.104
.166
7.197 7.494* 7.572* 7.492* 7.462*
7.141 7.043
.131
.391*
.546*
7.016
.054
.314*
.273
.177
7.335*
7.089
7.579*
7.585*
7.250
.900*
7.411*
7.329*
7.044
.086
7.007
.137
7.169
7.408*
.418*
.168
**p < .01; *p < .05.
The analyses of separate measures reported earlier suggest that children in the DCD
group spent more time alone and more time onlooking, and less time in large groups
and in formal or informal team games, than control children. The patterns of correlation
Social and physical play in clumsy children
407
between group size and these activities may therefore differ over the two groups. These
correlations are also shown in Table 4. Skill mastery, which on the overall analysis
looked as if it occurred most when children were in groups of two, was related to playing
alone in the DCD group, and to playing in small groups for the control children. Both
groups showed a relationship between the amount of time spent alone and in small
groups and the amount of time moving around without a context. However, onlooking
was more highly correlated with being alone in the DCD group than in the control
group. Formal and informal team participation was related to group size in similar ways
in both groups.
Relationships between variables may affect one’s understanding of the differences
between the two groups. A set of hierarchical regression analyses was carried out to
explore the contributions of different variables to the identification of children in the
two groups. As spending time alone has important consequences for the kinds of play
activity which may be engaged in, it was entered first. The amount of time spent alone
predicted 7.1% of the variance in group membership (F(1,108) = 8.31, p < .01). No
other group size predicted reliable proportions of the variance when entered after time
spent alone. Entering onlooking after time alone accounted for a further 3% of the
variance (F(1,107) = 3.73, p < .05). Entering moving without context at this point did
not make a significant contribution to explanation of the variance in group membership
(R2 change < 1%, F < 1). Moving without context did not make a significant
contribution when entered after time spent alone (R2 change < 1%).
The only other variable which accounted for a separate portion of the variance in
group membership was time spent in moving fantasy play. The group difference
analyses have already indicated that this variable was suppressed by time spent alone,
and when it was entered third into the regression after time spent alone and onlooking it
accounted for a reliable 3.7% increase in explained variance in group membership
(F(1,106) = 4.58, p < .05). Time spent onlooking was correlated with time spent alone,
but neither was related to time spent in moving fantasy play.
These three variables (time spent alone, onlooking, and moving fantasy play) were
entered into a discriminant function analysis. This analysis was able to discriminate the
children into DCD and control groups more frequently than would be expected by
chance (Wilks’ L = .860, approx. F(3,106) = 5.73, p < .01). The classification matrix
is shown in Table 5. Misclassification in the two groups was affected by age (w2 = 5.36,
p < .05).
Children who were in the DCD group and were misclassified as control were more
likely to be in the older age groups. Children in the control group misclassified as DCD
were more likely to be in the younger age groups. Girls and boys were misclassified
equally often in each group. The misclassifications, particularly of older boys, are
discussed further below.
Discussion
Children who had difficulty when tested on a standardized movement battery were
found to spend their time in the playground in ways which differed from those who did
not have such difficulty. As a group, they spent more time alone and more time with
one other child, more time watching other children play, and at some ages more time
408
Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
Table 5. Classification matrix for discriminant function analysis using three variables
(time spent alone, onlooking, and in moving fantasy games)
Predicted classification
Actual classification
DCD
Control
Total
Misclassification in discriminant
function analysis: by year group
DCD
Control
DCD
Control
Percent correct
36
17
53
19
38
57
65.45
69.09
67.27
Years 2 and 3
Years 4 and 5
5
11
14
6
moving round the playground without being engaged in any game or structured
activity. Boys in the movement impaired (DCD) group spent less time playing football
games in large groups, and girls spent less time in informal team games which involved
large groups. There was no evidence that children in the DCD group were more
involved in negative social contact, and there was insufficient data to allow any view to
be taken on bullying. The two groups of children did not differ in the amount of time
spent engaged in skill mastery, which tended to be engaged in more by girls, nor in
rough and tumble play which was seen more often in boys. In fantasy games there was
considerable involvement of younger children, and children in the DCD group were
involved in this type of play, but older children did not play in this way very much.
Football, on the other hand, was largely played by older boys.
It was suggested earlier that children with coordination disorder might be excluded
from motor or physical games first and then subsequently from other social games. This
claim is difficult to evaluate, and the results suggest both established solitariness quite
early and decreases in group play when physical skills become more important. As a
group, children in the DCD group spent longer alone and watching other children play,
even in the youngest age group. This suggests that exclusion or withdrawal was already
operating for some children with coordination problems by the age of 6. However, those
children who were alone for very large proportions of time were all from Years 3, 4 and
5, with no one from Year 2 (aged 6–7) spending more than 21% of the time alone.
There is no increase in time spent alone over the three later age groups, suggesting that
by age 7–8 some children are already solitary in the playground and that this may not
increase in the primary school years, although other aspects of exclusion may do so.
The physical and social components of play can be differentiated in some aspects of
these results. Skill mastery involves the repetition of skilled motor behaviour and
usually takes place in small groups. The children in the two groups in this study
engaged in skill mastery equally often. However, the children in the control group
Social and physical play in clumsy children
409
showed a strong relationship between skill mastery activity and playing in groups of two
or three children, while those in the DCD group did not. The skill mastery data, which
are not qualified by age, provide support for the view that the children in the DCD
group do engage in some skilled motor activity but are less likely to do so in the
presence of others. This suggests that children with DCD may be alone for a variety of
reasons. Coplan et al. (1994) have distinguished between solitude based on reticence,
marked by onlooking or being unoccupied while alone and related to anxiety and poor
performance, and two types of solitude associated with play – one constructive or
exploratory, and the other functional or dramatic. The present study indicates that DCD
children are alone more often, tend to be alone when they practise skill mastery, and that
they are onlookers. There may be different routes to solitude, even in children with
coordination difficulties.
Differences between the groups in fantasy and physical play show age progression,
which suggests that even though the study is cross-sectional, there are reliable agerelated effects in the data. The constraints on play imposed by activities such as wellorganized football, which varies from school to school, may mean that some age effects
are specific to these children in these schools, but the pattern of fantasy play is unlikely
to be explained in this way. Children played physical team games with rules more often
in the older age groups. Younger children played fantasy games more often. Fantasy
games tend to minimize motor skill, but they do involve social interaction and
cooperation. (It was only possible to identify behaviour as part of a fantasy game if more
than one child was involved.) Overall, the children in the DCD group tended to play
fantasy games as a larger proportion of the social games in which they took part. This
effect was fairly small, and it may indicate some tendency for children in this group to
compensate for less frequent group motor play by more frequent fantasy play. Certainly,
children in the DCD group did not engage in less fantasy play at younger ages, although
they did spend less time in active motor play. The inclusion of children in the DCD
group in fantasy play, but their exclusion from informal and formal team games and
from skill mastery in groups, suggests that social activity which is not dependent on
motor skill is important for younger children with impaired coordination. That is, social
play decreases as the physical demands of play increase.
Boys’ engagement in formal team games was affected by age. There was no evidence
that the youngest boys in the DCD group played football less than those in the control
group. By age 7–8, however, the difference between the two groups of boys was large.
Not only was it large, but in the oldest age group it was extremely variable. Some boys
in the DCD group played no football at all, while others played it a great deal. Of the
nine older boys who had poor scores on the Movement ABC and were misclassified as
control children in the discriminant function analysis, eight were football players who
spent an average of 55% of their time playing football. Football players may be on the
pitch but not really part of the game, engaged in what French and Waas (1987) called
‘game related solitary behaviour’. This did seem to be the case with the one girl who
took part in football games. For the boys, however, the level of active participation in
football was very high in those who played football most of the time. There was no
evidence that the boys in the DCD group who played football a lot were in fact being
solitary. Indeed, these boys came from two schools in which selection for football teams
was competitive, and they were keen and capable players. Six of these eight boys had
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Mary M. Smyth and Heather I. Anderson
scored below the 5th centile on the Movement ABC, so it is not the case that they were
borderline for coordination disorder when they were tested initially.
This study did not investigate the topic of football directly, so the number of boys
who were extremely involved in football was comparatively small and may reflect
idiosyncrasies in the children or be influenced by specific school practices with regard to
play. Nevertheless, football may be involved both in the exclusion of some children with
coordination difficulties, and in aiding others to overcome them. It is possible to see
playgrounds in which football is played only by boys as essentially exclusionary. Kelly
(1994) found that the descriptions of playground activity given by girls were very
different for playgrounds dominated by football and by boys and for those which banned
football but provided extra facilities and teacher assistance. In the former, aggression,
bullying and exclusion were ongoing characteristics, while in the latter there were
incidents of unhappiness but no one was reported to be unhappy all of the time.
Humphries and Rowe (1994) described a playground in which ball games were
discouraged and there was a wide variety of equipment, and different types of space. In
such a playground different patterns of exclusion and inclusion might develop from
those found in the present study. However, the girls in the DCD group spent less time
in large groups playing informal team games and this was not related to school practices
in managing such games, and was not, in general, competitive play, so the exclusion is
not based solely on competitive formal games. In addition, as already noted, football is
linked to both exclusion and integration for boys. This suggests that there may not be a
simple relationship between football and exclusion based on coordination difficulties.
There is a suggestion from Cantell et al. (1994) that some adolescents who have had
difficulties with motor coordination in earlier years are less active and continue to have
movement problems, while others play sports intensively and do better on movement
tests as they get older. The former group, who according to their parents also had fewer
friends, may have some similarities with the children in this sample (both boys and
girls) who did not play formal games, spent large amounts of time on their own, and
watched other children play. These children’s movement abilities are likely to remain
poor. They may be the children who do not select physical hobbies (Hall, 1988) and are
not chosen by others to play games (Smyth, 1992). However, these are not all of the
children who had impaired performance on the Movement ABC. One of the clearest
outcomes of the present study is that children in the DCD group are more varied in their
play than those in the control group. This can be seen in the standard deviations and
standard errors reported for many of the measures. Cantell et al. (1994) have indicated
that the outcomes of coordination disorder may be related to the application of children
to particular socially encouraged forms of motor activity. Some children overcome
coordination problems and take part in socially structured physical play while others do
not. Understanding this divergence is of considerable importance, both for one’s
knowledge of coordination problems and social development, and for the development
of appropriate programmes of intervention.
There is clearly a relationship between isolation and poor coordination, although a
causal story cannot be told here. Isolation and withdrawal are related to many factors in a
child’s development (Rubin, Stewart, & Coplan, 1995). It is possible that some children
have an initial dispositional tendency to withdraw from social interaction which leads to
poor social skills, which in turn leads to typically developing peers perceiving such
Social and physical play in clumsy children
411
children as socially incompetent (Rubin et al., 1995). Perceived incompetence can be
extended in a variety of ways to account for the isolation of clumsy children. Children
may identify any kind of incompetence which affects social interaction as a reason to
exclude others. The simple causal account of exclusion from physical play outlined in
the introduction suggests that perceived physical incompetence may lead to social
exclusion. Even within that account there may be those who choose to be solitary, and
who practise their motor skills in this way, only to find that they subsequently have
poorer social skills, and there may also be those who are actively excluded on the basis of
their physical incompetence (Asendorf, 1993).
An alternative to the simple causal account is that clumsy children may be less
competent in activities which are both social and physical. Poor coordination makes
physical activities more attention demanding and therefore reduces the child’s capacity
to deal with the social world, increasing the likelihood of perceived incompetence
within that world. In addition, children with coordination difficulties may have other
co-occurring difficulties, some of which, such as mild Asperger’s syndrome, will have
direct effects on their social integration, while others, such as specific disorders of
language or of literacy, may lead to exclusion or withdrawal when the child’s poor
competence in classroom subjects is added to physical incompetence. All these routes to
social exclusion may be operating within the sample of children investigated here.
While children with statements of special educational needs were excluded from this
study, there are difficulties associated with diagnosis of comparatively mild childhood
disorders and those children who are identified may be quite old before this occurs. Poor
coordination can be identified early in the primary school years, and is a useful indicator
of the possibility of later social difficulty. The developmental courses which link poor
coordination and social exclusion remain to be explored.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the ESRC. The authors are grateful to them, and to the headteachers,
teachers and children of five local primary schools who allowed them access to their playgrounds and
supported their work in many ways.
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Received 20 January 1999; revised version received 24 September 1999