Measurement and prediction of motor proficiency in children using Bayley infant scales and the Bruininks-Oseretsky test.

A sample of 76 Irish girls and boys of about 9 years of age, for whom neonatal (birthweight, Apgar and Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale) and infancy measures (Bayley Infant Scales at 18 months) were available, were administered the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP). The main focus of this paper is on a longitudinal analysis of the relationships between the neonatal and infancy measures and the BOTMP administered at about 9 years. However, since the literature expresses some doubts about the basis of the division of the BOTMP subtests into fine motor and gross motor groups and about the meaningfulness of the overall battery score, an initial statistical analysis was undertaken to examine these construct validity issues with this sample of children. This analysis indicated that the division of subtests into fine motor and gross motor skills groups, as formulated by the BOTMP, is not supported. The longitudinal analysis, therefore, focused mainly on subtest scores and provided some evidence of a degree of continuity in measured motor proficiency between birth, 18 months and the prepubertal period. Continuity was more evident for female children.