Maintaining balance requires inputs from visual, somatosensory and vestibular inputs as well as their integration to reference the self within the environment. Failure to integrate information from these three systems may lead to an increased sway.
         For an adult, a normal postural sway has an average amplitude of 2.7cm (Wann et al, 1998). When concentrating on the role of vision, body sway is attenuated by 50 % when the eyes are open compared to when they are closed (Wann et al., 1998). A study done by Wann et al. (1998) observed postural sway in children with DCD. Head movement of the subjects was recorded while standing in the eyes open condition and the closed eyes. It was determined that children with DCD exhibited more postural sway compared to their matched controls when their eyes were closed (Greuze, 2003). A possible explanation for this is that children with DCD are less capable of relying on proprioceptive and vestibular information when visual cues are eliminated (Deconinck et al., 2006). Another important factor to consider from this study is that the children with DCD also demonstrated significantly higher peak to peak sway when the room was moved. This result suggests that a substantial proportion of the sway response of children with DCD was outside the frequency band of the room motion and that children with DCD are more susceptible to general disruption of posture by visual motion (Wann et al., 1998). It is clear that children with DCD are dependent on vision and may have difficulty relying on other sensory systems such as the vestibular and somatosensory systems (Deconinck et al., 2006). Children suffering from DCD may also be behind their matched controls in acquiring skills of integrating visual and non-visual information (Wann et al., 1998).
         An increase in postural sway was further examined when children with DCD were asked to stand on foam surface (Cherng et al., 2007). When standing on foam, it is clear that the somatosensory condition is not reliable, and the child would have to engage in a re-weighing of sensory information to depend more on visual and somatosensory input. However, children with DCD failed to do so efficiently. Through this study, it is clear that an increase of sway in children with DCD is not due to a compromised utilization of individual sensory systems but rather a deficit in re-weighing sensory information as well as in sensory organization (Cherng et al., 2007)