de Almeida Maia, Denise;
Bardid, Farid;
Koch, Tobias;
Okuda, Paola;
Ploubidis, George;
Nordahl-Hansen, Anders;
Eid, Michael;
(2022)
Is Motor Milestone Assessment in Infancy Valid and Scaled Equally Across Sex, Birth Weight, and Gestational Age? Findings From the Millennium Cohort Study.
Frontiers in Psychology
, 12
, Article 781602. 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.781602.
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Abstract
Is the assessment of motor milestones valid and scaled equivalently for all infants? It is not only important to understand if the way we use gross and fine motor scores are appropriate for monitoring motor milestones but also to determine if these scores are confounded by specific infant characteristics. Therefore, the aim of the study is to investigate the latent structure underlying motor milestone assessment in infancy and measurement invariance across sex, birth weight, and gestational age. For this study, the birth cohort data from the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) was used, which includes the assessment of eight motor milestone tasks from the Denver Developmental Screening Test in 9-month-old infants (N = 18,531), depicting early motor development of the first children of generation Z. Confirmatory factor analyses showed a better model fit for a two-factor structure (i.e., gross and fine motor development) compared to a one-factor structure (i.e., general motor development), and multiple indicators multiple causes modeling revealed no differential item functioning related to sex, birth weight, and gestational age. The study provides support for the use of gross and fine motor scores when assessing motor milestones in infants—both boys and girls with different birth weights and of varying gestational ages. Further investigation into widely adopted assessment tools is recommended to support the use of valid composite scores in early childhood research and practice.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Is Motor Milestone Assessment in Infancy Valid and Scaled Equally Across Sex, Birth Weight, and Gestational Age? Findings From the Millennium Cohort Study |
| Location: | Switzerland |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.781602 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.781602 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 de Almeida Maia, Bardid, Koch, Okuda, Ploubidis, Nordahl-Hansen, Eid and Cogo-Moreira. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Psychology, motor development milestones, assessment, infants, confirmatory factor analysis, differential item functioning, DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONES, PHYSICAL-ACTIVITY, CHILDREN, COMPETENCE, ATTAINMENT, CONSTRUCT, REVISION, DENVER, TIME |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10143145 |
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