The performance of children developing typically on the pediatric balance scale.

PURPOSE

To investigate Pediatric Balance Scale (PBS) performance in children developing typically.

METHODS

The PBS was administered to 643 children developing typically per parent report, aged 2 years 4 months to 13 years 7 months.

RESULTS

A 2-way analysis of variance and post hoc analyses identified significant age and gender differences in PBS performance. The Spearman rank correlation analysis identified associations between PBS scores and age, height, weight, and body mass index. Data were analyzed using 95% confidence intervals of the means to identify PBS typical performance ranges for each age and gender group. The lower bound of the 95% confidence intervals was used to identify outliers and determine a "critical cut score" for each group. The numbers and percentages of children scoring above and below this critical cut score were calculated to further describe the sample.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides the clinician with guidelines for interpretation of PBS performance.