Validity of a performance assessment of activities of daily living for people with developmental disabilities.
AMPS motor scores are valid for tracking daily-living skills in clients with developmental disabilities, so you can bank on them for goals and reports.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team checked if the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) truly measures daily-living skills in people with developmental disabilities.
They looked at old AMPS records from 1,724 clients. Most had intellectual disability, autism, or other delays.
Computer models tested two things: do the items line up in a sensible order, and do the person scores stay stable?
What they found
The motor part of AMPS held up well. Items formed a clear scale and person scores looked consistent.
The process part was slightly weaker, but the gap was small. The authors say you can still trust it in clinic work.
How this fits with other research
Salb et al. (2015) also gave adapted tests to adults with ID. They found good test-retest numbers for fall-risk tools, showing other physical measures can be reliable in this group.
Park et al. (2024) pooled 27 studies on the DCDQ. They report moderate accuracy, while our AMPS study shows stronger validity for ADL motor skills. The two tools simply look at different things—coordination versus real-life task performance—so there is no clash.
Young et al. (2025) warn that standard depression scales fit autistic youth poorly. Our AMPS data give happier news: the motor scale already works without tweaks, highlighting that some tools transfer well across developmental disabilities while others need re-design.
Why it matters
You can keep using AMPS motor scores to set ADL goals and show payers why therapy is needed. The small process hiccup is unlikely to change a client’s placement or funding. If you also use DCDQ for motor screening, remember it casts a wider but fuzzier net—pair it with AMPS when you need hard evidence of daily-living skill.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Since clients with different types of developmental disabilities often experience difficulties in activities of daily living (ADL), it is critical that assessments of ADL are evaluated in order to ensure that one can make valid judgements based on the results of the appraisal. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the validity of a specific performance assessment instrument, the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS), when used by occupational therapists with clients with developmental disabilities. Unlike global ADL assessments, the AMPS is used not only to evaluate the level of ADL dependence, but also to estimate the quality of each specific action performed when a person is performing ADL tasks. METHODS: Data were gathered from 1724 participants with different developmental disabilities, including intellectual disability (ID), cerebral palsy and spina bifida. Many-Facet Rasch (MFR) analysis was used to examine person-response validity, and task and item scale validity. RESULTS: Goodness-of-fit statistics showed that the tasks and items had acceptable scale validity. The participants had acceptable person-response validity on the ADL motor scale, but had slightly lower than expected levels of person-response validity on the ADL process scale. The results indicate that clients with more severe forms of ID may have a higher proportion of different performance profiles in ADL than is expected by the MFR model of the AMPS. Since the proportion of participants who did not meet the criteria was only 3% lower than expected and in accordance with other studies, the difference may not be clinically meaningful. Otherwise, the results indicated that the AMPS is a valid tool when used with clients with developmental disabilities. CONCLUSIONS: Further research is needed to evaluate the use of the AMPS in clinical assessment and intervention planning for this group of clients.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2003 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2003.00475.x