title: The Early Motor Questionnaire (EMQ): a parental report measure of early motor development.
abstract: Children's early motor skills are critical for development across language, social, and cognitive domains, and warrant close examination. However, examiner-administered motor assessments are time consuming and expensive. Parent-report questionnaires offer an efficient alternative, but validity of parent report is unclear and only few motor questionnaires exist. In this report, we use cross-sectional and longitudinal data to investigate the validity of parent report in comparison to two examiner-administered measures (Mullen Scales of Early Learning, MSEL; Peabody Developmental Motor Scales, PDMS-2), and introduce a new parent-report measure called the Early Motor Questionnaire (EMQ). Results indicate strong correlations between parent report on the EMQ and a child's age, robust concurrent and predictive validity of parent report with both the MSEL and PDMS-2, and good test-retest reliability of parent report on the EMQ. Together, our findings support the conclusion that parents provide dependable accounts of early motor and cognitive development.
authors.affiliation: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA. Electronic address: klaus.libertus@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Libertus
authors.forename: Rebecca J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Landa
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Autism; Motor development; Parent report; Questionnaire