Comparing the Movement Assessment Battery for Children with the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency in adolescents with and without schizophrenia

Background: As motor impairments have implications for health and functioning, they need to be addressed early, not only in childhood but also in adolescence, the period in which mental disorders as schizophrenia, typically develops. Further, the possible prognostic value of motor impairments in schizophrenia highlights the importance. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2) and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2) assess adolescent motor performance. However, MABC-2 is not valid past age 16 and has no sex-norms. Further, while the concurrent validity between the tests and their ability to distinguish between clinical and non-clinical groups has been established in children, however they have not been established in adolescence.

Purpose: To compare the ability of MABC-2 and BOT-2 to distinguish between adolescents with and without schizophrenia, to examine the concurrent validity between tests, to examine the agreement between tests in classifying adolescents "at risk" or scoring "below average" and to examine the influence of age and sex on MABC-2.

Method: Motor performance assessed by BOT-2 and MABC-2 was compared in 25 adolescents with schizophrenia (14-18) and age- and sex-matched controls using t-test, Cohen's D and false discovery rate's q-value. The associations between tests were assessed using Pearson's correlation and Lin's concordance correlation coefficient. The Kappa coefficient was used to assess the agreement between tests in classifying "risk/below average" and linear regression was adopted to assess the influence of age/sex on MABC-2.

Results: MABC-2 and BOT-2 significantly distinguished adolescents with schizophrenia from controls with large effect size. A strong association (p > 0.001) was found between the tests. The tests revealed moderate agreement in identifying "risk" or scoring "below average". Only sex influenced MABC-2 scores.

Conclusion: MABC-2 and BOT-2 are both useful for assessing motor performance and distinguishing between adolescents with and without schizophrenia, although BOT-2 provides a more detailed picture of the challenges in adolescent with schizophrenia.