Cross-cultural adaptation of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ’07) for the population of Polish children

Study aim: The purpose of this article is to present the cultural adaptation of the DCDQ’07 (Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire) as one of the popular and most frequently-used diagnostic instruments for diagnosing DCD in school-age children.

Material and method: The procedure for translating and evaluating the selected psychometric parameters of the DCDQ has been conducted in compliance with the guidelines for the procedure [4]. The study involved 152 parents of school-age children; the control group included 32 children. Additionally, a group of 75 children was tested with the KTK test. To assess the test–retest reliability, the group of 50 parents was tested twice with the DCDQ at an interval of 14 days.

Results: The study proved that the DCDQ is an accurate and reliable instrument for screening DCD in Polish children. The high value of all of the analysed psychometric parameters is evidenced by the following: a sensitivity of 0.75, a specificity of 0.63 and a test-retest reliability of 0.93. Internal consistency is also satisfactory and amounts to 0.92. The study also determined that the score of the DCDQ depends on the gender of the tested child, and not on his/her age.

Conclusions: According to the research, DCDQ is a useful instrument that allows for the screening of DCD in school-age children. The Polish version of the questionnaire is definitely going to fill in the gap among diagnostic instruments and will allow for further development of research on the epidemiology of DCD.