Criterion validity and diagnostic accuracy of a new mobility screening for first and second graders

Abstract

Background: As part of a sequential diagnostic strategy, screening is used in the first step before children classified as positive are further examined with a detailed motor test. For this, the MobiScreen for children in the first and second grades will be tested for its criterion validity and diagnostic accuracy.

Methods: In total, 234 children from three randomly selected primary schools, of whom 129 are boys and 105 girls (age 7.14 ± .80 years) participated. The MobiScreen and the German Motor Test DMT 6-18 are used. For MobiScreen, total time, total score, and a combination of both, and for the German Motor Test DMT 6-18, raw and Z-scores of all tasks as well as total Z-score will be evaluated.

Results: Differences between boys and girls in test results are only shown in a few DMT 6-18 tasks. Correlations between both tests are consistently in a medium to high range with the exception of a few tasks. The Area under the curve and sensitivity values exceeds the required value of .80. A cut-off value of 31 seconds could actually be considered optimal.

Conclusions: The required values were achieved to a high degree for all parameters so that the screening can be further validated. For this purpose, further reference tests such as MOBAK or M-ABC-2 should be used to check whether these procedures correlate to a similarly high degree with the MobiScreen and thus whether a high diagnostic accuracy is also visible via these procedures. These studies will start soon.