title: Aspects of the validity of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children.
abstract: Does the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) measures what it claims to measure? The concurrent validity of the total impairment score and some of the item scores of the second and third age band of the M-ABC test were investigated. One hundred thirty three children, between 7- and 9-year-old, were assessed with the M-ABC test, a ball catching test and two tasks measuring dynamic balance. Ninety of these children were identified as children with a poor ball catching skill and 43 children were typically developing children. One hundred and seven children were assessed with the second age band of the M-ABC (the 7- and 8-year-old children) and 26 with the third age band (the 9-year-old children). The results of the correlation analysis between the ball catching test, the two dynamic balance tasks and the corresponding items of the M-ABC, varied from non-significant to a highly significant correlation coefficient of -0.74. For some items concurrent validity was established but other items seemed less valid, probably due to a lack of discriminative power. The concurrent validity of the total impairment score of the M-ABC was confirmed for the second age band. Correlation coefficients between the ball catching test, the dynamic balance skills and the M-ABC varied between -0.72 and -0.76. The results for the third age band have to be interpreted with prudence because they were based on only 26 children.
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, K.U.Leuven, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. hilde.vanwaelvelde@arteveldehs.be
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Van Waelvelde
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: De Weerdt
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Cock
authors.forename: B C M
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Smits-Engelsman
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004856:Postural Balance; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011596:Psychomotor Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013223:Statistics as Topic