Disability and Mobility Do-it-Yourself Co-Op

Background

We compared children with, at-risk for, or without developmental coordination disorder (DCD) on the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2) and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC) through (a) correlations, (b) gender and age comparisons, (c) cross tab analyses, and (d) factor analyses.

Method

Children (N = 424; age range: 4–10 years) from southern Brazil completed the TGMD-2 and MABC and placed into groups (DCD: ≤ 5th%, n = 58; at-risk: > 5th to ≤ 15th%, n = 133; typically developing (TD) >16th%, n = 233).

Results

The strongest correlation was between total performance on the TGMD-2 and MABC (r = .37). No gender differences were found for performance on the MABC while boys performed better than girls on the TGMD-2. Cross tab analyses indicated a high level of agreement for children who performed in the lowest percentiles on each assessment. Factor analyses suggested that, for both the TD and at-risk groups, three factors loaded on the motor assessments. In contrast, the DCD group loaded on a sport skill, general skill, and a manipulative skill factor, accounting for 42.3% of the variance.

Conclusions

Evidence suggests that children who perform very poorly on one assessment are likely to perform poorly on the other. Children with DCD may have sports-related skill deficiencies.