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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2024.1511965

Validity of the Alberta Infants Motor Scale in Norwegian infants aged 6 to 9 months through comparison with Canadian and Dutch scores

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Oslo Municipality, Oslo, Norway
  • 2 Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway
  • 3 Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  • 4 Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Hordaland, Norway
  • 5 Children's Physiotherapy Center, Bergen, Norway

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: The Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) is widely used to assess infant motor development but has shown limited cross-cultural validity in various populations. The distribution of the original AIMS scores has not been cross-culturally validated for Norwegian infants. This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of the Canadian AIMS norm reference for Norwegian infants aged 6 to 9 months and compare their percentile rankings with the Canadian and Dutch norms. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, AIMS scores from a sample of 189 Norwegian infants aged 6 to 9 months were compared to the Canadian and Dutch norms. Total raw scores from the Canadian norms were compared to those of the Norwegian sample, and the percentiles of the Canadian and Dutch sample were compared to tentative Norwegian percentiles. Results: Norwegian infants aged 6 to 9 months consistently scored lower on the AIMS than their Canadian counterparts (p<0.001), with 81% scoring at or below the 50 th percentile and 18% falling at or below cut-off indicating possible motor delay. Using the Dutch norms, 20% of the Norwegian sample scored at or below the 50 th percentile, while only 1% scored at or below the cut-off. A comparison of the percentile ranks showed that Canadian norms had the highest ranks for all age groups, followed by the Norwegian sample and subsequently the Dutch norms. The observed difference is considered clinically significant. Conclusion: Neither Canadian nor Dutch AIMS norms are valid for Norwegian infants due to the Canadian norms being too stringent and the Dutch norms being too lenient. A thorough crosscultural validation for infants 0-18 months to establish Norwegian-specific AIMS norms is recommended.

    Keywords: Infant, Motor development, assessment, Cross-cultural validity, Aims, Norway

    Received: 15 Oct 2024; Accepted: 27 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Göthner, Riiser and Tveten. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kirsti Riiser, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, 0130, Norway

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.