OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to test the road crossing accuracy of children with and without DCD in virtual reality tasks that varied the viewpoint to simulate the teaching methods currently used in road safety educational programmes. Twenty-one children with DCD and twenty-one age and gender matched TD peers were required to locate the safest road crossing sites in two conditions: allocentric (aerial viewpoint) and egocentric (first-person viewpoint).
UNASSIGNED: All children completed both conditions and were required to navigate either themselves or an avatar across the road using the safest crossing route. The primary outcome was accuracy defined as the number of trials, out of 10, on which the child successfully identified and used the safest crossing route.
CONCLUSIONS: Children with DCD performed equally poorly in both conditions, while TD children were significantly more accurate in the egocentric condition. This difference cannot be explained by self-reported prior road crossing education, practice or confidence.
CONCLUSIONS: While TD children may benefit from the development of an egocentric virtual reality road crossing task, multimodal methods may be needed to effectively teach road safety to children with DCD.