Evaluating the CSAPPA subscales as potential screening instruments for developmental coordination disorder.

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Motor Skill Development
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) affects motor skills in children, impacting daily activities.
• Early identification of DCD is crucial for timely intervention and support.
• Generalised self-efficacy measures, like the CSAPPA, may offer insights into motor skill development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of subscales from the Children's Self-Perceptions of Adequacy in and Predilection for Physical Activity (CSAPPA) as screening tools for DCD.
• To compare the diagnostic performance of CSAPPA subscales against the full instrument using a validated motor proficiency test.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency short form (BOTMP-SF) to identify probable DCD cases in 590 children (grades 4-8).
• Administered the BOTMP-SF and the CSAPPA to participants across four schools in Ontario, Canada.
• Employed receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis to assess the performance of CSAPPA subscales and the full scale.

Main Results:

• The full CSAPPA demonstrated good overall performance (AUC = 0.81).
• The 'adequacy' (AUC = 0.79) and 'predilection' (AUC = 0.80) subscales showed statistically equivalent performance to the full scale.
• The adequacy subscale, with a cut-point of 24, achieved a sensitivity of 0.86 and a specificity of 0.47 for DCD screening.

Conclusions:

• The adequacy subscale of the CSAPPA is a viable alternative to the full measure for screening DCD.
• Further research is recommended to enhance the specificity of the CSAPPA adequacy subscale for DCD screening, potentially by incorporating additional criteria.