Motor profile of Portuguese preschool children on the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-2: a cross-cultural study.
Portuguese preschoolers beat US norms on fine-motor but lag on gross-motor, so use local norms or risk mis-labeling.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the Peabody-2 motor test to 250 Portuguese preschoolers with no diagnosis.
They compared every score to the US norms printed in the test manual.
Kids came from 20 public kindergartens across five cities.
What they found
Portuguese children scored higher on fine-motor and visuo-motor tasks than the US sample.
They scored lower on running, jumping, and ball-handling tasks.
The gap was big enough to shift a child from "average" to "delayed" if you use the wrong table.
How this fits with other research
Lin et al. (2012) saw the same tool track real gains in kids with cerebral palsy, proving PDMS-2 scores do reflect change.
Cummings et al. (2024) found BMI barely links to BOT-2 gross motor scores in youth with ID, hinting that culture or diagnosis may matter more than body size.
Messinger et al. (2010) showed early motor ratings predict later skills, so using the wrong norm table could wrongly flag kids for services.
Together the papers say: pick the right norm group or your referral decisions will be off.
Why it matters
If you test a Portuguese-speaking child with the US norms, you may over-refer for fine-motor therapy and under-refer for gross-motor help.
Ask publishers for local norms or create your own agency database.
Always report two scores: one against the manual and one against local data so teams see the difference.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Plot your last five PDMS-2 gross-motor scores against both the US table and your agency’s local averages; note any child who changes quartiles.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study was designed to examine the cultural sensitivity of the PDMS-2 for Portuguese preschool children aged 36-71 months. A total of 540 children (255 males and 285 females) from 15 public preschools of Viana do Castelo, Portugal, were assessed. Age and gender effects in motor performance were examined. Results indicated that PDMS-2 is valid instrument to differentiate Portuguese age groups. Girls presented higher scores than boys in the Grasping and Visuo-motor integration subtests and lower scores in the Object Manipulation subtest. Portuguese preschoolers performed above US norms on Grasping, Visual-motor integration, and Stationary subtests, and bellow on Locomotion and Object Manipulation subtests. Overall, Portuguese children showed better results on the Fine Motor Quotient comparing to the Gross Motor Quotient. These results underline different motor development profiles between Portuguese and American children.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.03.010