Objectives
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between fine motor skills and reading components and compare the fine motor skills of normal children and children with dyslexia.
Materials & Methods
In this study, 47 children with dyslexia children and 47 normal children in the first to the third grade of elementary school in the age range of seven to nine years were examined with the Bruininks- Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency and NEMA reading test. Data were analyzed using Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Shapiro-Wilk, U Mann-Whitney methods, multiple linear regression, and Spearman correlation coefficient.
Results
The results showed children with dyslexia were significantly weaker in fine motor skills than normal children (p <0.001). In addition, a relationship existed between the subtest of response speed and
reading accuracy in normal children, but it was in normal children. A significant relationship was found between visual-motor control subtests and Upper-limb speed and dexterity with reading accuracy and speed. None of the motor subtests were related to reading comprehension. In children with dyslexia, no association was found between motor subtests and reading components.

Conclusion
Seemingly, fine motor skills can be used as an essential factor along with other effective factors in improving the reading skills of children with reading disabilities

1. Chaix Y, Albaret J-M, Brassard C, Cheuret E, De Castelnau P, Benesteau J, et al. Motor impairment in dyslexia: the influence of attention disorders. European Journal of Paediatric Neurology. 2007;11(6):368-74.
2. Biotteau M, Albaret J-M, Lelong S, Chaix Y. Neuropsychological status of French children with developmental dyslexia and/or developmental coordination disorder: Are both necessarily worse than one? Child Neuropsychology. 2017;23(4):422-41.
3. de Freitas PB, Pedao ST, Barela JA. Visuomotor processing and hand force coordination in dyslexic children during a visually guided manipulation task. Research in developmental disabilities. 2014;35(10):2352-8.
4. Getchell N, Pabreja P, Neeld K, Carrio V. Comparing children with and without dyslexia on the movement assessment battery for children and the test of gross motor development. Perceptual and motor skills. 2007;105(1):207-14.
5. Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ. Dyslexia, dysgraphia, procedural learning and the cerebellum. Cortex. 2011;47(1):117-27.
6. Kaltner S, Jansen P. Mental rotation and motor performance in children with developmental dyslexia. Research in developmental disabilities. 2014;35(3):741-54.
7. Stoodley CJ, Stein JF. Cerebellar function in developmental dyslexia. The Cerebellum. 2013;12(2):267-76.
8. Malek A, Amiri S, Hekmati I, Pirzadeh J, Gholizadeh H. A comparative study on diadochokinetic skill of dyslexic, stuttering, and normal children. ISRN pediatrics. 2013;2013.
9. Eden GF, VanMeter JW, Rumsey JM, Zeffiro TA. The visual deficit theory of developmental dyslexia. Neuroimage. 1996;4(3):S108-S17.
10. Laycock R, Crewther SG. Towards an understanding of the role of the ‘magnocellular advantage’in fluent reading. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 2008;32(8):1494-506.
11. Parker F. Dyslexia: An overview. Journal of Basic Writing. 1985;4(2):58-67.
12. Landerl K, Willburger E. Temporal processing, attention, and learning disorders. Learning and individual differences. 2010;20(5):393-401.
13. Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ, Dean P. Developmental dyslexia: the cerebellar deficit hypothesis. Trends in neurosciences. 2001;24(9):508-11.
14. Ito M. Control of mental activities by internal models in the cerebellum. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2008;9(4):304.
15. Ramus F, Pidgeon E, Frith U. The relationship between motor control and phonology in dyslexic children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2003;44(5):712-22.
16. Wenande B, Een E, Petok JR. Dyslexia-related impairments in sequence learning predict linguistic abilities. Acta psychologica. 2019;199:102903.
17. Brown CG. Improving fine motor skills in young children: an intervention study. Educational Psychology in Practice. 2010;26(3):269-78.
18. Alvarez TA, Fiez JA. Current perspectives on the cerebellum and reading development. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 2018.
19. O'Hare A, Khalid S. The association of abnormal cerebellar function in children with developmental coordination disorder and reading difficulties. Dyslexia. 2002;8(4):234-48.
20. Lyddy F. Cerebellar symmetry in dyslexics. Trends in cognitive sciences. 2002;6(6):233.
21. Eckert MA, Leonard CM, Richards TL, Aylward EH, Thomson J, Berninger VW. Anatomical correlates of dyslexia: frontal and cerebellar findings. Brain. 2003;126(2):482-94.
22. Janet WL. Learning disabilities: Theories, diagnosis and teaching strategies (seven edition). Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company College Division; 1997.
23. Kaplan BJ, Wilson BN, Dewey D, Crawford SG. DCD may not be a discrete disorder. Human movement science. 1998;17(4-5):471-90.
24. Gomez A, Sirigu A. Developmental coordination disorder: core sensori-motor deficits, neurobiology and etiology. Neuropsychologia. 2015;79:272-87.
25. Hill EL. A dyspraxic deficit in specific language impairment and developmental coordination disorder? Evidence from hand and arm movements. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. 1998;40(6):388-95.
26. Wolfe CB. Motor control and reading fluency: Contributions beyond phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming in children with reading disabilities. 2007.
27. Suggate S, Pufke E, Stoeger H. Do fine motor skills contribute to early reading development? Journal of Research in Reading. 2018;41(1):1-19.
28. Pitchford NJ, Papini C, Outhwaite LA, Gulliford A. Fine motor skills predict maths ability better than they predict reading ability in the early primary school years. Frontiers in psychology. 2016;7:783.
29. Macdonald K, Milne N, Orr R, Pope R. Relationships between motor proficiency and academic performance in mathematics and reading in school-aged children and adolescents: A systematic review. International journal of environmental research and public health. 2018;15(8):1603.
30. Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ, Berry EL, Jenkins IH, Dean P, Brooks DJ. Association of abnormal cerebellar activation with motor learning difficulties in dyslexic adults. The Lancet. 1999;353(9165):1662-7.
31. HOSSEINI M, MORADI A, KORMI NR, HASSANI J, PARHOON H. Reliability and validity of reading and dyslexia test (NEMA). 2016.
32. Bruininks-Oseretsky R. Test of motor proficiency: Examiner’s manual. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service. 1978.
33. Cohen J. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. 3rd ed. New York: Academic Press; 1988.
34. Okuda PMM, Ramos FG, Santos LCAd, Padula NAdMR, Kirby A, Capellini SA. Motor profile of students with dyslexia. Psychology Research. 2014:31.
35. Ibrahim S, Harun D, Baharudin S, Hui EJT. Motor performance and functional mobility in children with specific learning disabilities. Med J Malaysia. 2019;74(1):35.
36. Démonet J-F, Taylor MJ, Chaix Y. Developmental dyslexia. The Lancet. 2004;363(9419):1451-60.
37. Milne N, Cacciotti K, Davies K, Orr R. The relationship between motor proficiency and reading ability in Year 1 children: a cross-sectional study. BMC pediatrics. 2018;18(1):294.
38. Sun Y-F, Lee J-S, Kirby R. Brain imaging findings in dyslexia. Pediatrics & Neonatology. 2010;51(2):89-96.