Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Movement ABC) Article Summary
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to assess the impacts of motor and cognitive development and how it affects health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in preterm children and/or very low birthweight at 11 years old in born in the 2000’s that have a diagnosis of Developmental Coordination Disorder.
Study Population:
219 Infants were followed from birth to 11 years old that were born very preterm or low birthweight in the Turku University Hospital in Finland from January 2001 to December 2006.
Methods:
As mentioned above, these infants were chosen via born pre-maturely or born at a low weight. The inclusion criteria from 2001-2003 was born prematurely at less than 32 weeks and infants birthweight at less than or equal to 1500 grams. Starting in 2004 the inclusion criteria encapsulated all infants that were born less than 32 weeks of their gestational age in which their birthweight did not matter. Exclusion criteria focused on excluding infants with sever congenital anomalies or any diagnosed syndrome involving cognitive development impairments. This study defined DCD by motor outcomes. First they diagnosed children with CP by 2 years of age. Children born pre-term and did not have CP were looked at by age 11 utilizing the Movement Assessment Battery for Children- 2ndEdition. Scores taken were converted to a standard score for each child and then to a percentage score. Using ages 11-16 years, and the norms of an 11 year old child, they calculated percentiles to assess any difficulty with movement. If a child scored greater than 15%, they had no movement difficulty. Greater than 5 up to 15%, indicated increased risk of movement difficulties, and less than or equal to 5% indicated DCD.
Outcome Measures:
Motor and cognitive outcomes were assessed utilizing the Movement Assessment Battery for Children- Second Edition (Movement ABC-2) along with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children- Fourth Edition for assessing cognition, and the HRQoL utilizing the Dimensional Illustrated Questionnaire. Full-Scale IQ was also taken. To exclude other neurological conditions outside of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DSD), The Touwen neurological examination was used.
Intervention:
No interventions were used in this study.
Results:
Out of the 219 participants, 170 children were followed up to the 11 year old age (77.6% rate).
Motor development- A total of 18 children, of which 17 were boys, were classified of having DCD after performing the Movement ABC-2. They scored in the less than or equal to 5thpercentile. This study identified a positive correlation between motor and cognitive outcomes.
Cognitive Development- Children born very pre-term with DCD had more cognitive impairments (lower cognitive scores) compared to children born prematurely without DCD.
Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL)- Children born very pre-term with DCD had lower HRQoL scores compared to children born very pre-maturely that did not have motor impairments.
Strengths/Limitations:
Strengths discussed was the high follow-up rate of this study from birth all the way to 11 years old. A limitation is that this study did not follow the European Academy of Childhood Disability recommendations of performing the motor assessments repeatedly. This was due to the current recommendations were not available during the data collection period of this study.
Conclusion:
Overall, although many babies born very pre-term survive without being diagnosed with CP, there is an increased risk of developing DCD. If born very pre-term, and have a diagnosis of DCD, it is shown that the child will display lower cognitive performance compared to children born prematurely without DCD. The effect of HRQoL for children born very pre-term displayed a good quality of life, but there were differences noted between children born very pre-term with DCD versus children born very-preterm but did not have any motor impairments.
3 responses to “Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Movement ABC) Article Summary”
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Awesome post, Tyler! The results of the study help to reinforce the importance of Pediatric PT. The children that did not have motor impairments expressed a higher quality of life. This shows that if we treat a motor impairment successfully, it is possible that we could improve the quality of life of that patient.
Hi Tyler,
Very interesting that 17 of the 18 children classified with DCD were boys. Did your article discuss any rationale behind why the results panned out this way? Are boys more prone to DCD than girls or was the sample size just predominately male? Thank you for sharing!
Hey, Kim! They didn’t discuss the rationale at all. I think it was the luck of the draw and this is just how it worked out with the sample size!