The Early Motor Questionnaire facilitates the remote assessment of normative motor development in infancy and toddlerhood

Abstract

This study investigated the utility of the Early Motor Skills Questionnaire–Extended Version (EMQ-X). Participants included 165 children who were participating in the Brain and Early Experience study, which is a prospective longitudinal study of children followed across the first 5 years of life. Parent-reported motor skills were moderately associated with other aspects of children’s development (temperament and gesture use) and experience (exposure to learning materials), with rs ≈ .25 to .45. Children’s gross motor, fine motor, and perception action subscales exhibited strong internal consistency and pronounced developmental changes across the first 3 years of life, with greater rates of linear change in infancy compared with toddlerhood. Longer gestational age was associated with higher initial levels of motor skills, and prenatal exposure to smoking was associated with slower rates of motor skill acquisition; these effects were comparable for the gross motor, fine motor, and perception action subscales. The EMQ-X is an efficient tool for measuring children’s motor skills and may be of special interest for use in studies where performance-based assessments are not feasible.