Objective Visual recognition by 8-year-old children with hand–eye co-ordination problems (HECP), and by a control group of children without such problems was tested using a task of visual closure.

Design The task required the children to identify common objects from an incomplete visual presentation.

Result As predicted, it was found that the HECP children, who were designated as such solely on the basis of their motor difficulties, identified significantly fewer correct objects than their control counterparts.

Conclusions This finding raises the possibility that the visual processing problems of clumsy children contribute to, or even strongly determine, not only their movement problems but also their learning difficulties.