Are there cross-cultural differences of ADL ability in children measured with the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS)?

INTRODUCTION

In many studies of self-care assessments for children, cultural differences in age-norm values have been shown. No study has evaluated whether there are cross-cultural differences in ADL motor and/or process skills in children when measured with the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS).

AIM

To investigate if there were systematic differences in ADL ability measured with the AMPS between children from the Nordic countries and North America and to evaluate the applicability of the existing international age-normative values for children from these two regions.

METHODS

Values from a total of 4 613 children, 3-15 years old, without known disabilities, from these geographical regions were compared with ANOVA. The difference in logits between each region and the mean values for each age group were calculated.

RESULTS

No differences of relevance in age-related ADL ability measures between children from the two geographical regions were found, and the age-norm values are applicable to both regions.

IMPLICATIONS

The AMPS may be considered free from cultural bias and useful in both clinical practice and research concerned with children in both the Nordic countries and North America.