The movement assessment battery for children: A preliminary investigation of its usefulness in Japan

The aim of this study was to examine the suitability of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Henderson and Sugden, 1992) for use with Japanese children. One hundred and thirty three Japanese children aged seven to eleven years participated in the study. Their performance was compared to the American children of the same age on whom the 1992 standardisation was based. Analysis of the individual test items revealed a number of significant differences between the samples, some favouring Japanese children others favouring American. Post hoc examination of those test items that best distinguished Japanese from American children showed that the items favouring the Japanese children tended to be in the dynamic balance section of the test and those favouring American in the manual dexterity section. Approximately nineteen percent of children in the Japanese sample obtained total scores lying two or more standard deviations below the American means. It would be premature to ascribe all the obtained differences to cultural factors. Data from a larger and more broadly based sample of Japanese children will be necessary to provide a more appropriate basis for making decisions about the usefulness of the Movement ABC test items and published norms. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.