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

Abstract

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.

Key words::

• assessment
• children
• cross-cultural
• age-mean values
• AMPS

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express appreciation to Brett Berg and Anne G. Fisher of the AMPS Project International for permission to access the data and preliminary data analyses. The Petter Silvferskiöld Memorial Fund, the Mandis and Per Molin Foundation, the Greta and Einar Asker Foundation and the Centre for Health Care Sciences at Karolinska Institutet supported this study financially.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.