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Ball catching skills of 5- to 11-year-old typically developing children in real and virtual environments
Tsu-Hsin Howe1, Tien-Ni Wang, Ching-Fan Sheu
1Department of Occupational Therapy, New York University, New York, USA.
Insights
A new virtual ball catching test shows good validity for assessing children's motor skills. This virtual environment offers a promising alternative for clinical assessments of ball catching performance.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric motor development
- Virtual reality in rehabilitation
- Psychometric validation of assessments
Background:
- Assessing motor skills in children is crucial for early identification of developmental issues.
- Traditional ball catching tests can be limited by equipment and environmental factors.
- Virtual environments offer novel possibilities for standardized and engaging motor assessments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To validate a new virtual ball catching test for concurrent and discriminant accuracy.
- To analyze ball catching performance in typically developing children within a virtual setting.
Main Methods:
- The study involved 368 children aged 60-140 months, including typically developing children, those with developmental coordination disorders, and those with a history of premature birth.
- Concurrent validity was assessed by correlating scores with a standardized ball catching test.
- Discriminant validity was evaluated by comparing performance across the three diagnostic groups.
Main Results:
- The virtual ball catching test demonstrated good concurrent validity (r=0.67) and acceptable discriminant validity.
- Significant effects of age, sex, speed, and location were observed in typically developing children's performance.
- The test successfully differentiated performance between typically developing children and those with developmental coordination disorders or preterm history.
Conclusions:
- The virtual ball catching test possesses acceptable psychometric properties for children aged 5-11 years.
- Virtual environments present a promising and potentially useful alternative for clinical motor performance assessment.
- Further research is recommended to explore the clinical applications of this virtual assessment tool.
Objective:
The two aims of this study are (1) to examine the concurrent and discriminant validity of a newly developed virtual ball catching test and (2) to explore the ball catching performance of typically developing children in a virtual environment.
Design:
Three groups of children aged 60- to 140-mo-old (n = 368) participated in this study: (1) typically developing children (n = 272), (2) children with diagnoses of developmental coordination disorders (n = 33), and (3) children with premature birth history (n = 63).
Results:
The concurrent validity of the virtual ball catching test was good, with Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.67 between the virtual ball catching test and the Van Waelvelde's short ball catching test in successful catching rate. The discriminant validity of the virtual ball catching test was acceptable in differentiating the performance among typically developing children, children with developmental coordination disorders, and children with preterm history. The significant main effects in age, sex, speed, and location (Ps < 0.001) as well as significant interaction effects in age x location and age x speed were found when examining the virtual ball catching performance of typically developing children.
Conclusions:
The virtual ball catching test demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties in assessing the ball catching performance of children aged 5-11 yrs. We propose that testing children's motor performance in a virtual environment might be a useful and promising alternative for clinical assessment. Future research on its clinical application is needed.
