Poor attitude, and lazy are just some of the labels that children with developmental coordination disorder are frequently given.

Cheryl Chia, a paediatric physiotherapist from Singapore was in Bermuda to speak about the disorder at the BerCon 3rd Atlantic-Caribbean 21st Century Learning Conference held in June.

BerCon Ltd is a local company that specialises in providing individualised educational intervention and related services for children and their families.

At the Bercon conference, Ms Chia gave a presentation and interactive hands on talk at the Fairmont Southampton Princess and Windreach Recreational Village.

Developmental coordination disorder is diagnosed when children do not develop normal motor coordination.

"We will be looking at the relationship between the sensory motor system in an individual and how that is linked to learning," said Ms Chia shortly before the June 26 and 27 conference began. "We will be looking at how it effects academic learning and performance in the classroom."

She said that developmental coordination disorder, which was known in the past as 'clumsy child disorder' can come out in various ways.

"It could be manifesting in a child who is not performing well academically," said Ms Chia. "That can influence confidence and lead to behavioural issues. It could be more direct like untidy handwriting, poor visual spatial sense, poor at geometry, being clumsy in a physical education class."

Unfortunately, the disorder is often missed and parents and teachers sometimes only notice behavioural problems.

"It is often missed in the classroom," said Ms Chia. "Certainly it is in Asia.

"People may think the child is not trying hard enough."

She said the child's confidence usually suffers.

"Usually, the child only know that they hate to write, or they don't like to read," she said. "It comes out as if it is behavioural, but also the child is turned off because it takes a lot of effort in concentration or writing."

Some children with developmental coordination disorder have problems with their sense of touch because their tactile system is not performing properly.

This disorder can cause not only academic problems but also social problems with the child's peers.

"The child may not like to be touched or stand the intensity of touch," said Ms Chia. "This can cause problems on the playground.

"Or they may come across as being cold, or being very aggressive. They may not be relating to other children."

Ms Chia said she first became interested in this area of study while at university in Australia.

"The university I went to had a nice lab that was looking at kids with what we call minor neurological disfunction," she said. "This lab was really looking at regular school going mainstream kids.

"It was looking at why they would be clumsy and having handwriting issues."

After university Ms Chia went back to Singapore to research developmental coordination problems there.

"I was looking at intervention work," she said. "I was looking at whether learning performance could be improved with intervention.

"It was just a small trial, but there were very nice improvements and academic results. We were using certain physical activities that address the sensory motor system."

She said no one is really sure what cases this disorder. It is brain based, but could be caused by genetics, diet, environment or a combination of factors.

"You could start to spot children with this problem quite early," she said. "Early signs would be if the toddler was falling a lot. The child might not be walking at 18 months.

"Children with this problem might be very clumsy with their fingers, have problems feeding themselves, or be really messy."

Even as an infant, a child with this disorder might have feeding problems.

Before the conference, Ms Chia said, "What I hope to get across during my lecture is for parents and educators to be aware that the sensory motor system has a huge relation to learning in general, and academic learning.

"I want for people to know that something can be done about it.

"Rather than to say the child has a bad attitude or is lazy they need to step back a little bit and say maybe it is the brain that is not processing information optimally."

Also speaking at the BERCON conference was Dr. David Bolton speaking about learning difficulties.

"One of the main things is to educate the people who attend the conference about the importance of neuroscience to learning and to reading," said conference organiser Andrea Cann.

Ms Cann is a paediatric physiotherapist.

" It is an issue for all of us, because it impacts not just how kids are doing in school, but into life as well," Ms Cann said. "There are social implications for not recognising learning difficulties and learning uniquenesses at an early stage."

For more information about BerCon go to their website at http://www.bercon.bm/pages/