A comparison of parent report and actual motor competence in young children

Parent proxy reports are well used in occupational therapy, yet historically parent report instruments of motor skill have not required parents to report on the same motor skills that their children are assessed on. The aim was to examine how well a parent report of children's fundamental movement skill (FMS) was associated with children's actual FMS.

A sample of 100 children aged 7-9 years from Melbourne, Australia, were recruited. Parents/guardians completed proxy report (parent version of the 'Pictorial Scale of Perceived Movement Skill Competence' (PMSC)) and children's actual motor skills were assessed ('Test of Gross Motor Development' 3rd edition (TGMD-3)). Data were first analysed using Pearson's correlation coefficients and then hierarchical linear stepwise regression was conducted with actual skill as the outcome variable in each model.

The PMSC-Parent (r = 0.36, P < 0.001) was moderately associated with children's actual skill. After age and sex adjustment, the PMSC-Parent explained 11.4% of variance in total skills. Parent report of their children's object control scores (PMSC object control scale) was significantly associated with children's actual object control (B = 0.36, P < 0.001) and explained 11.3% of the variance. Parent report of children's locomotion scores (PMSC locomotion scale) was associated with children's actual locomotor skills (B = 0.27, P = 0.007) and explained 6.2% of the variance.

Parents are able to report to some degree on their children's FMS competency, in particular, their object control competence. Parent proxy report of FMS may help inform occupational therapists to identify children with low FMS competency to develop interventions targeting FMS.