Date Presented 04/13/21
It is important to monitor the status of motor development in children. Standardization for comparing pre- and postintervention results for children with suspected developmental coordination disease should also be implemented. In this study, a digital device for testing manual dexterity was developed, and its accuracy was verified. This device will be used to provide data for early screening and intervention program planning for infants at risk of delayed motor development or disability.
Primary Author and Speaker: Yeshin Woo
Contributing Authors: Allison J. L'Hotta, Anna H. Bauer, Chih-Hung Chang, Taniya Easow Varughese, Regina A. Abel, Allison King
OBJECTIVE: It is important to monitor the status of motor development in children. The number of children is gradually decreasing from 9.9 million (based on the National Statistical Office in 2011) to 7.8 million (2018), and 7.6% of newly born children are reported as premature babies. Developmental Coordination Disease (DCD) occurs in a large number of children who are born as premature babies, and DCD is occurring in a small number among normal children. In the case of children, since physical development is in progress, it cannot be measured by one specific indicator and must be approached from a dynamic view of development. Standardization for comparing pre- and post-intervention results for children with suspected dyskinesia or DCD should also be implemented. It is important to develop a digitally evaluation system including representative items among various items. Accordingly, in this study, a digital device for testing the manual dexterity was developed, and a reliability test was used to verify the accuracy of the evaluation device.
DESIGN & METHODS: 12 subjects (36.33 ± 9.9; 7 males and 5 females) with no disease were employed in this study. We measured manual dexterity using the Grooved pegboard, 9-hole pegboard and digitized manual dexterity assessment device and reliability of the device were then analyzed. The principle of digitized manual dexterity assessment device is magnetic field detection. The color of the pegs are a structure in which red and yellow are painted half and half. Two small magnet (2mm × 1mm) were inserted in each tips of pegs. It is intended to give a step by step through the task execution according to the color. Time is recorded at 0.02s intervals, and finally Total/Average Time and Success Rate can be calculated. Intraclass correlation coefficient(ICC) analysis was performed to analyze the reliability of the existing evaluation tool and the digitized device using SPSS 25.0.
RESULTS: The result of each assessments average is 18.5s (9-hole), 63.5s (grooved), 16.3s (subtest1 of Digitized device), 21.3s (subtest2 of Digitized device) and 22.4s (subtest3 of Digitized device). Digitized device for manual dexterity data was found to have excellent internal consistency (Cronbach α = 0.84, ICC(2,1) = 0.21, p < .001) for measuring the tested parameter. The concurrent validity was examined by calculation of correlation between 9-hole pegboard, grooved pegboard and Digitized device for manual dexterity. The good correlation between the grooved pegboard and subtest of Digitized device for manual dexterity (r = .59, p = 0.04).
CONCLUSION: This study is conducted to present a simple, convenient, and easily applicable measurement tool for measuring manual dexterity, one of the motor development indicators for children. First, 3 subtests were conducted for general adults, and the reliability and validity of the measured time variables were verified. In the future study, it is necessary to verify the reliability and validity of more samples and then expected that digitized manual dexterity assessment device will be used to provide important basic data for early screening and intervention program planning for infants at risk of delayed motor development or disability.
References
Wilson, B. N., Kaplan, B. J., Crawford, S. G., Campbell, A., & Dewey, D. (2000). Reliability and validity of a parent questionnaire on childhood motor skills. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 54(5), 484-493. https://doi.org/ 10.5014/ajot.54.5.484
Schoemaker, M. M., Flapper, B., Verheij, N. P., Wilson, B. N., Reinders-Messelink, H. A., & de Kloet, A. (2006). Evaluation of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire as a screening instrument. Developmental medicine and child neurology, 48(8), 668-673. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S001216220600140X
Wick, K., Leeger-Aschmann, C. S., Monn, N. D., Radtke, T., Ott, L. V., Rebholz, C. E., ... & Munsch, S. (2017). Interventions to promote fundamental movement skills in childcare and kindergarten: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 47(10), 2045-2068. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s40279-017-0723-1
Spittle, A. J., Cameron, K., Doyle, L. W., Cheong, J. L., & Victorian Infant Collaborative Study Group. (2018). Motor impairment trends in extremely preterm children: 1991–2005. Pediatrics, 141(4). https://doi.org/ 10.1542/peds.2017-3410
