Motor difficulties in 16p11.2 copy number variation.

This is an observational comparison of existing data, not a treatment study, so it cannot show that changing motor therapy would improve outcomes. The deletion and duplication groups differed substantially in age, and the age-restricted analysis reduced the duplication group to 71 carriers, so some findings lost statistical significance. Many participants were initially identified probands, and excluding them changed the sample size and made developmental coordination disorder and children's motor battery findings non significant or untestable. Multiple motor outcomes were compared, and some effects appeared only after adjustment or were at the threshold of significance. Noncarrier data were missing for several motor measures, including age of first walking, motor speed, motor performance, and tandem gait. IQ was related to some motor measures, so the effect of genetic status on those measures may be partly linked to cognitive ability.

The supplied text does not include a conflicts-of-interest declaration. The publication types indicate research support from the U.S. National Institutes of Health extramural program and non-U.S. government sources.

Do not conclude that deletion carriers have worse motor function overall. They had more reported coordination difficulty and slower motor speed, but they also had less tremor and better scores on some direct motor tasks than duplication carriers. The study did not test an intervention, so it cannot show that a particular therapy will help.