Caregiver-reported newborn term and preterm motor abilities: Psychometrics of the PediaTrac™ Motor Domain

BACKGROUND: Approximately 5–10% of children exhibit developmental deviations in motor skills or other domains; however, physicians detect less than one third of these abnormalities. Systematic tracking and early identification of motor deviations are fundamental for timely intervention. METHODS: Term and preterm neonates were prospectively assessed at the newborn (NB) period in a study of the psychometric properties of the Motor (MOT) domain of PediaTrac™ v3.0, a novel caregiver-based development tracking instrument. Item Response Theory graded response modeling was used to model item parameters and estimate theta, an index of the latent trait, motor ability. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to examine the dimensionality and factor structure. RESULTS: In a cohort of 571 caregiver/infant dyads (331 term, 240 preterm), NB MOT domain reliability was high (rho=0.94). Item discrimination and item difficulty of each of the 15 items could be reliably modeled across the range of motor ability. EFA confirmed the items constituted a single dimension with second-order factors, accounting for 43.20% of variance. CONCLUSIONS: The latent trait, motor ability, could be reliably estimated at the NB period.