The assesment of motor coordination in children with down's syndrome with the movement assesment battery for children (movement ABC)

Abstract

Motor alterations are common in children with Down´ s syndrome (DS). These motor coordination deficits usually affect different skills including visual-hand coordination, laterality control, time of reaction and equilibrium. In the present study the applicability of different tasks has been analyzed, included in the motor test -Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC), which measures motor competence in children without disabilities, to 125 children with Down´s syndrome nine to fourteen years old. The aims of the study were to ascertain the applicability of this motor test in children with Down syndrome and evaluate the motor skills of these children with the above-mentioned test in a large population of both girls and boys. The results were that the MABC, with minor adaptations is useful to evaluate motor skills in children with Down syndrome and the degree of motor development in nine to fourteen years old children with Down syndrome is lower than that of the four to six years old non-disabled children as measured with the MABC test.