Background Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a motor disorder of unclear etiology that severely interferes with a child's ability to perform daily motor tasks. As a useful alternative to a time-consuming motor test and specialist evaluation, parents or teachers can complete motor questionnaires. A tool used worldwide to screen motor performance in 4- to 14-year-old children is the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire 2007 (DCDQ'07). Aims To describe how we translated the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire 2007 (DCDQ'07) and adapted it to the Italian population and to test its preliminary psychometric properties in Italian children. Methods Parents of a clinical group of 26 children (5–11 years old) with a diagnosis of DCD and 52 matched controls completed the DCDQ translated into Italian and adapted for cross-cultural purposes according to current guidelines. Twenty-four parents of typically developing children randomly selected completed the questionnaire twice to examine test–retest reliability. Results The internal consistency value (Cronbach alpha) for the Italian DCDQ was 0.94. The Italian DCDQ achieved moderate-to-high test–retest reliability (ICC) for 14/15 items and a good diagnostic performance for identifying children with DCD (sensitivity 88% and specificity 96%). Conclusions The Italian DCDQ is a valid screening tool for assessing motor performance in 5- to 11-year-old children that merits research in a larger sample.