Motor development and functional ability for children with cerebral palsy: A new tool for functional measure

The paucity of adequate tool available for documenting therapeutic effectiveness surfaces as major problem. An initiation is being taken to develop an appropriate tool which can evaluate motor development and functional ability of children with Cerebral palsy appropriate to Indian culture and society.
Aim: To develop an assessment tool for analysing motor development and functional ability of children with Cerebral palsy.
Objectives: (i) To develop Psychometric property and evaluate the psychometric property of the tool. (ii) To check the reliability and validity of the tool developed.
Material and method: Tool development was conducted in three phases, Phase 1- development of 64 items in three domains. Expert review was undertaken and correction of the content was done through discussion with experts. Phase 2- content validity and face validity have been established. Phase 3 - concurrent validity, has been established by corelating with GMFM.
Result: 64 items were generated under three stages: Infant (20), Toddler (36) and Preschooler (8). Content validity index at item level and Scale level were significantly high (> 0.80) for agreement in Clarity, Essential and Relevancy. The face validity of the tool was evaluated. Each item was under full agreement category (90% -100%) in formatting, clarity, and appropriateness of the item for children with CP. Test-retest, interrater and concurrent validity of the tool is significantly acceptable.
Conclusion: The new tool may be considered as an effective measure which is suitable in children with CP.