Development of a Global Assessment of Functioning Scale in People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD)

Abstract

Introduction

In the last years there is more research in a differentiated view of the capacity of people with IDD. Besides the evaluation of cognitive functioning, studies also look at other developmental dimensions like socio-emotional skills. Because of their basically biological character, motor skills were not further studied in people with IDD. We wanted to study whether there is a correlation between these different dimensions in patients with IDD.

Objective

This presentation will look at possible connections and interferences between socio-emotional development, cognitive functions and motor skills.

Methods

We evaluated the level of motor development with the 'Movement Assessment Battery for Children” in n= 31 patients. Results were correlated with the level of cognitive impairment and socio-emotional status.

Results

In contrast to cognitive functioning we found no significant difference between the socio-emotional and the motor skills for all study patients, regardless of sex, in the subscales manual and ball skills. Only in the subscale balance we found a significant correlation with the socio-emotional level in female patients.

Conclusion

With regard to the dimensions cognitive impairment and socio-emotional level we found no significant correlation with motor skills. This is in accordance with the literature. Only in the dimension 'balance” in female patients we could see a significant difference which is a new result and interesting for further evaluation. So another study with a bigger and more balanced patient sample to confirm this result is planned.