Construct validity of the In-Hand Manipulation Test: a discriminant analysis with children without disability and children with spastic diplegia.

OBJECTIVE This study examined the construct validity of the In-Hand Manipulation Test (IMT) by assessing the test's ability to discriminate between samples of children with and without known fine motor problems. METHOD The IMT was administered to 55 children without known fine motor problems and 24 children with spastic diplegia who had mild to moderate fine motor problems. Construct validity was estimated by evaluating how accurately the IMT classified the children as having or not having fine motor problems on the basis of total score. RESULTS A discriminant analysis indicated that IMT total score correctly classified 83.33% of the participants as having or not having fine motor problems. CONCLUSION The IMT has adequate construct validity to classify the participants of this study and for continued use as a research instrument to assess children's in-hand manipulation skills. Additional validity studies of the IMT are needed with other samples of children before its use for clinical purposes.