Movement assessment battery for children-2: translation, reliability, and validity for Brazilian children

The Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2nd edition (MABC-2) is a well-recognized assessment used to identify children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Although researchers and practitioners across Brazil have used the MABC-2 to identify children with motor deficits, its validation for this particular population has yet to be investigated. In this study, we translated all MABC-2 items and validated them with respect to content, construct and criteria validity. The validation process involved 13 experts in Motor Development and a total of 844 children (3-13 years old) from two different states in Brazil. A cross-cultural translation method yielded a Brazilian-Portuguese version of the battery. The expert panel confirmed language clarity and pertinence of the items. High intra- and inter-rater reliability and internal consistency for the MABC-2 was established for Brazilian children. A discriminant analysis confirmed the MABC-2 power (.80) to differentiate children with DCD and those at risk for DCD from typically developing children. Predictive validity was observed for the impairment scores and a percentile main effect was found in the repeated measures ANOVA (ICC: .93 and .73, respectively). Although our data are not representative of the entire country, this study is the first to confirm that the original standardized scores established for the MABC-2 are valid in Brazilian children.