Fundamental movement skills testing in children with cerebral palsy

Purpose.?To examine the inter-rater reliability and comparative validity of product-oriented and process-oriented measures of fundamental movement skills among children with cerebral palsy (CP).

Method.?In total, 30 children with CP aged 6 to 14 years (Mean == 9.83, SD == 2.5) and classified in Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) levels I–III performed tasks of catching, throwing, kicking, horizontal jumping and running. Process-oriented assessment was undertaken using a number of components of the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2), while product-oriented assessment included measures of time taken, distance covered and number of successful task completions. Cohen's kappa, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and tests to compare correlated correlation coefficients were performed.

Results.?Very good inter-rater reliability was found. Process-oriented measures for running and jumping had significant associations with GMFCS, as did seven product-oriented measures for catching, throwing, kicking, running and jumping. Product-oriented measures of catching, kicking and running had stronger associations with GMFCS than the corresponding process-oriented measures.

Conclusion.?Findings support the validity of process-oriented measures for running and jumping and of product-oriented measures of catching, throwing, kicking, running and jumping. However, product-oriented measures for catching, kicking and running appear to have stronger associations with functional abilities of children with CP, and are thus recommended for use in rehabilitation processes.