Clumsiness and Motor Competence in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy

Abstract

One of the main objectives of physical education and sport (PES) pedagogy in schools is to develop motor competence in children. While many schoolchildren practice sports, there is a group of children that does not receive the educational opportunities to be competent. These children show low motor competence and poor motor coordination. International agencies have called this condition as developmental coordination disorders (DCD) and its definition in short is "poor motor performance in daily activities that is not consistent with the child's age and intelligence, and is not due to medical condition ." Physical education and sport teachers are the first interventionist with these children. They have the first opportunity of providing primary care to these children. In this chapter, motor coordination problems in school, its prevalence, how these children learn, how physical education and sport teachers can detect them, and why physical education and sport pedagogy must be concerned with this problem, will be analyzed.