Comparison of Two Scales for Assessing Motor Development in Infants with down's Syndrome

Abstract

The Peabody Developmental Scales (PDS) and the Movement Assessment of Infants (MAI) were examined for their abilities to detect subtle changes in motor development of infants with Down's syndrome Both assessments were administered to 10 infants before and after a 6-week period A t-test suggested that the MAI was sensitive to developmental changes in the subjects tested from initial test to follow-up. Similar testing using the PDS did not reveal significant differences in the scores, suggesting that the MAI was the more sensitive of the two instruments. When partial correlations were calculated for possible artifactual effects due to age, the MAI still demonstrated greater stability. Results indicate that, for infants with Down's syndrome, the MAI may be preferable to the PDS for detecting changes in motor ability over short periods. However, these results should be considered tentative until a more in-depth study is conducted using a larger number of subjects from a variety of clinical populations.

Keywords

developmental assessment test reliability Peabody Developmental Scales Movement Assessment of Infants

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