Paediatric physiotherapists typically use motor scales and functional tests to observe and record children’s levels of development in relation to their chronological age.
Through these evaluative measures, physiotherapists can observe any functional limitations or possible deficits that might require therapeutic treatment. Some tests evaluate spontaneous movement, while others focus on specific activities and/or postural alterations. Some are more useful for planning individual treatment; some serve best for comparing global development against chronological age, and others are designed to evaluate children with disabilities.
Although there are currently a number of different scales for measuring children’s levels of musculoskeletal, psychomotor and motor skill development, physiotherapists need to be familiar with and able to administer internationally recognised valuation tools in order to both quantitatively and qualitatively identify children’s musculoskeletal development, assess motor and psychomotor skills and ultimately recognise values that lie outside normal parameters.
Each evaluation method has a specific focus which may be particularly useful for a certain population, pathology or dysfunction. Different methods may also be extremely relevant to the subsequent determination and planning of therapeutic techniques, or they may constitute an instrumental record for research purposes.
Some tests assess the level of global maturation in different areas, while others value basic aspects of gross and/or fine motor skills; still others engender follow-ups or treatment for musculoskeletal development. The valuation process should be ongoing, comprehensive and designed in light of modern concepts in motor control. Because this complex process is used to determine a child’s skills or disabilities in all areas of development, its proper planning will often require an interdisciplinary and highly dynamic approach.