The caregiver assessment of movement participation (CAMP) as a screening insturment for children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD): A pilot study of the psychometric properties

Background: As stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV, a child with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) manifests significant impairment in activities of daily living. Measuring movement participation in home contexts is diagnostically useful for screening children with DCD. However, many children are diagnosed with DCD as early as 5; yet existing screening tests such as the DCDQ are designed for children aged 8 and above. We therefore developed the Caregiver Assessment of Movement Participation (CAMP) as a parent-proxy screening tool for younger children to assess movement difficulties at home, and examined its psychometric properties. Methods: Content validity was carried out on 16 international experts. A convenient sample of 230 children aged 5 to 8 from mainstream schools and clinical referrals were recruited for a field study. Intra-class correlation ICC(1,1) was used to assess test re-test reliability. Construct validity was examined using factor analysis and by contrasting the scores between normal and children with DCD using independent t-tests. Concurrent validity was investigated by correlating the CAMP score with the M-ABC Test and Checklist. Results: Three factors were obtained, revealing that CAMP measures broadly fine motor, gross motor and body categories. Internal consistency, measured using Cronbach’s alpha, of the scale was 0.88. ICC ranged from 0.67 to 0.79 for the sub-domains and the overall score. Pearson correlation between the CAMP and M-ABC Test and Checklist was 0.28 and 0.35, respectively. Children with the disability scored significantly lower in all sub-domains as well as the overall average (all p<0.001) when compared with their non-DCD counterparts. Conclusion: The 35-item CAMP appeared to be reliable and valid. More testing on other psychometric properties, such as finding the best cut-points for screening purposes, are needed before the instrument can be used by parents.