Construction and evaluation of the Children Motor Development Assessment Scale for infants aged 0 - 3 years in six cities of China

Abstract

Objective To develop a Motor Development Scale (MDS) for infants aged 0 - 3 years, and to evaluate its reliability and validity, so as to provide a convenient and effective practical tool for the scientific and effective assessment of motor development among infants in China. Methods From July 2019 to April 2021, infants aged 0 - 3 years from six cities nationwide were assessed for motor development using the MDS. The Cronbach's α coefficient was used to evaluate the internal consistency reliability. Two different evaluators conducted two MDS assessments within two weeks on 25 children to determine the test-retest reliability. The validity evaluation was performed using the Gross Motor and Fine Motor Subscales of the Gesell Scale as the gold standard for Pearson correlation analysis. Statistical analysis was conducted on the scale scores. Results A total of 1 019 valid samples were collected, including 512 boys and 507 girls. The Cronbach's α coefficients for the fine motor, gross motor subscales, and the total scale were all >0.9, indicating good internal consistency of the scale. The test-retest reliability for the fine motor subscale and gross motor subscale was 0.997 and 0.995, respectively (P<0.01). The validity test results showed a correlation between the Gesell fine motor developmental quotient (DQ) and the MDS fine motor DQ (r=0.71, P<0.05), as well as between the Gesell Gross Motor DQ and the MDS Gross Motor DQ (r=0.73, P<0.05). The MDS scores showed an increasing trend with the age of infants (P<0.01). Conclusions The MDS developed in this study has a motor development screening efficiency comparable to the Gesell Motor Subscales. The content validity of the scale meets standard levels, with a reasonable structure, strong applicability, simplicity, and ease of operation, and has a good ability to screen for children with developmental abnormalities, meeting the needs of motor development screening and motor rehabilitation assessment in children.

Keywords

infants and toddlers / motor development assessment / reliability / validity