Motor skills and capacities in developmental dyslexia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

In recent decades, the connections between academic skills, such as reading, writing, and calculation, and motorskills/capacities have received increasing attention. Many studies provided evidence for motor difficulties inchildren and adolescents with dyslexia, prompting the need for a meta-analysis to combine these multiplefindings. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis using PsycINFO, Pubmed, and SportDiscus as scientific databases.A total of 572 studies were analyzed following several stringent inclusion criteria, resulting in the inclusionof 23 peer-reviewed studies in the final analysis. Our results showed that children and adolescents withdyslexia displayed significant different performances in multiple motor tasks and these differences persisted alsowhen the type of motor task was considered as moderator in the analysis. The present findings are in accordancewith the literature that supports a close connection between reading disabilities and difficulties in motor skills/capacities.