Interrater Reliability of the Melbourne Assessment of Unilateral Upper Limb Function for Children With Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy

OBJECTIVE. We examined the interrater reliability of the Melbourne Assessment of Unilateral Upper Limb Function. METHOD. Three occupational therapists independently scored 34 videotaped assessments of children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy aged 6 yr, 1 mo, to 14 yr, 5 mo. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) at a 95% confidence interval were calculated for total scores, category scores, and item scores. RESULTS. The correlation between raters' total scores was high (ICC = .961). The highest correlation for test components between raters was found for fluency (ICC = .902), followed by range of movement (ICC = .866), and the lowest correlation was found for quality of movement (ICC = .683). The ICCs for individual test item scores varied and ranged from 368 to 899. CONCLUSION. This study demonstrated high interrater reliability for total scores, with scoring of some individual components and items requiring further consideration from both a clinical and a research perspective.