Quality of performance of everyday activities in children with spina bifida: a population-based study.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of the performance of everyday activities in children with spina bifida.


METHODS
Fifty children with spina bifida (of 65 children in a geographic cohort), aged 6 to 14 years, were evaluated with Assessment of Motor and Process Skills.


RESULTS
Compared with age-normative values, 60% of the children with spina bifida were found to have motor ability measures below 2 SD and 48% process ability measures below 2 SD. Most of the children with spina bifida had difficulties performing well-known everyday activities in an effortless, efficient and independent way, relating to both motor and process skills. The motor skills hardest to accomplish involved motor planning and the process skills hardest to accomplish were adaptation of performance and initiations of new steps, thus actually getting the task done.


CONCLUSIONS
To reach autonomy in life, children with spina bifida may need particular guidance to learn not only how to do things but also how to get things done.
Peny-Dahlstrand
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M
Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. marie.peny-dahlstrand@neuro.gu.se
Ahlander
A-C
AC
Krumlinde-Sundholm
L
L
Gosman-Hedström
G
G
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D012016:Reference Values; D016135:Spinal Dysraphism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013548:Sweden; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis