Reliability of Selected Health-Related Fitness Tests for Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

Aim: To quantify test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change for 90 and 95% confidence levels (90MDC, 95MDC) for health-related fitness tests in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Methods: Lower limb muscle strength [hand-held dynamometry (HHD), unilateral heel rise test (UHRT), standing broad jump (SBJ)], muscle endurance [Muscle Power Sprint Test (MPST)] and cardiorespiratory endurance [20-metre Shuttle Run Test (20mSRT)] were evaluated twice (2–7 day interval) in 31 children with DCD (20 males, 9.4 years old ± 2.0). Results: Test-retest reliability was reported as intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) (2, 1) 95% confidence interval lower bounds. Values were excellent for MPST (peak and mean power: 0.93, 0.95), good for HHD (0.81–0.88), SBJ (0.82), and the 20mSRT (0.87) and moderate for UHRT (0.74). For HHD, the 90MDC and 95MDC were the largest for hip extensors (14.47, 12.14 Nm) and the smallest for ankle dorsiflexors (1.55, 1.30 Nm). For UHRT, SBJ, MPST and the 20mSRT, these MDC values were 11.90, 9.98 repetitions; 25.49, 21.38 cm; 4.70, 3.94 W (mean power), and 6.45, 5.42 W (peak power) and 0.87, 0.73 (number of stages), respectively. Conclusion: These tests yield reliable test-retest results that can be used to evaluate fitness changes in this group.

Keywords:

• Children
• developmental coordination disorder
• fitness measurement
• psychometric proprieties
• strength measurement

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the children and families for their participation. We would also like to thank physical therapists Marie-Claude Latulippe, Joanne Saulnier, Mariève Allard-Ouellet and Julie Marier for assistance with data collection and recruitment and Chantal Ferland and Marc Perron for assistance with study design. Finally, we wish to thank Jean Leblond for their assistance with the statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the “Center intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Capitale Nationale.”