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Published on: January 11, 2016
Hand skill assessment with a reduced version of the Peg Moving Task (PMT-5) in children: normative data and
Gilberto Nunes1, Lucia Willadino Braga, Luciana Rossi
1SARAH Network of Rehabilitation Hospitals, International Center for Neurosciences and Rehabilitation, Brasília, DF, Brazil. gilberto@sarah.br
Insights
This study introduces a simple hand skill assessment for children, validated across Brazil and France. It highlights significant hand function variability in children with cerebral palsy (CP), with deficits more pronounced in special school settings.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric assessment
- Neurorehabilitation
- Child development
Background:
- Accurate hand skill assessment is crucial for pediatric clinical practice.
- Existing methods may lack cross-cultural validation or detailed analysis of specific populations.
- Understanding hand function in children with cerebral palsy (CP) requires nuanced evaluation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and validate a simplified hand skill assessment method for children.
- To establish normative data for hand skill in a diverse pediatric age range.
- To investigate hand function deficits in children with various subtypes of cerebral palsy (CP).
Main Methods:
- Utilized a reduced 5-hole version of Annett's Peg Moving Task.
- Quantified hand skill bilaterally in 435 typically developing children (ages 3-18) in Brazil.
- Verified cross-cultural validity with 157 children (ages 6-11) in France.
- Applied the task to 76 children diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP).
Main Results:
- Established normative data for hand skill assessment in children aged 3-18.
- Demonstrated significant variability in hand function deficits across different cerebral palsy (CP) subtypes.
- Observed more severe hand deficits in children with CP attending special schools compared to regular schools.
- Identified task execution difficulties specific to children with CP and those common in typically developing children.
Conclusions:
- The proposed 5-hole Peg Moving Task offers a simple, clinically useful method for assessing hand skill in children.
- Normative data provide a benchmark for evaluating hand function across developmental stages.
- Findings underscore the heterogeneity of hand impairments in pediatric cerebral palsy (CP) and the impact of educational settings.
Abstract:
This paper proposes a simple method of hand skill assessment in children that can be useful in clinical practice. A reduced 5-hole version of Annett's Peg Moving Task was used to quantify hand skill bilaterally in 435 normally developing preschool and school-children, and adolescents aged 3-18 years from Brazil. The cross-cultural validity of the normative data obtained in Brazil was verified in 157 school-children aged 6-11 years from France. An application in 76 children with cerebral palsy (hemiplegia 21, diplegia 34, triplegia 6, mixed type 15) showed very important variability of the deficits in hand function within each subtype of cerebral palsy (CP). Hand deficits were more severe in children in special schools than in children in regular schools within each CP subtype. A qualitative analysis showed which difficulties during the execution of the task were specific to children with CP and which were also observed in normally developing children.
