Movement assessment battery for children-2: translation, reliability, and validity for Brazilian children.
The Brazilian MABC-2 is a reliable, valid choice for diagnosing DCD in Portuguese-speaking children aged 3–13.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Leung et al. (2014) translated the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 into Brazilian Portuguese. They then checked if the new version still gives trustworthy scores for kids aged 3 to 13 with and without developmental delay.
The team ran standard reliability and validity tests on the translated kit. Their goal was to show Brazilian clinicians they could safely use the tool to spot developmental coordination disorder (DCD).
What they found
The Brazilian MABC-2 passed every psychometric test. It gave steady scores across raters and time, and it correctly flagged children with motor delays.
In short, the translation kept the good qualities of the original English test. Clinicians can now use it with confidence to identify DCD in Portuguese-speaking children.
How this fits with other research
The findings line up with Ellinoudis et al. (2011) and Hua et al. (2013), who also reported solid psychometrics for MABC-2 age band 1 in Greek and Chinese samples. Together, these studies show the tool holds up across cultures.
Mammarella et al. (2022) later extended the work by validating a parent-report screener, the LDCDQ-BR, for Brazilian preschoolers. The two papers now give clinicians both a performance test and a quick parent form for the same age range.
One caution comes from Holm et al. (2013). That study found high measurement error in MABC-2 age band 2 and warned that at least an 18-point change is needed before you trust individual progress scores. The Brazilian paper did not test progress tracking, so the contradiction is only apparent: use the test for diagnosis, not for tiny weekly gains.
Why it matters
If you assess motor skills in Brazil, you now have a validated Portuguese MABC-2. Use it to diagnose DCD, choose intervention goals, and explain results to families in their own language. Just remember the test is built for identification, not for measuring small weekly changes.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2nd edition (MABC-2) is a well-recognized assessment used to identify children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Although researchers and practitioners across Brazil have used the MABC-2 to identify children with motor deficits, its validation for this particular population has yet to be investigated. In this study, we translated all MABC-2 items and validated them with respect to content, construct and criteria validity. The validation process involved 13 experts in Motor Development and a total of 844 children (3-13 years old) from two different states in Brazil. A cross-cultural translation method yielded a Brazilian-Portuguese version of the battery. The expert panel confirmed language clarity and pertinence of the items. High intra- and inter-rater reliability and internal consistency for the MABC-2 was established for Brazilian children. A discriminant analysis confirmed the MABC-2 power (.80) to differentiate children with DCD and those at risk for DCD from typically developing children. Predictive validity was observed for the impairment scores and a percentile main effect was found in the repeated measures ANOVA (ICC: .93 and .73, respectively). Although our data are not representative of the entire country, this study is the first to confirm that the original standardized scores established for the MABC-2 are valid in Brazilian children.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.10.028