Introduction Remote assessment creates opportunities for monitoring child development at home. Determining the possible barriers to and facilitators of the quality of telemonitoring motor skills allows for safe and effective practices. We aimed to: (1) determine the quality, barriers and facilitators of Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) home videos made by mothers; (2) verify interrater reliability; (3) determine the association between contextual factors and the quality of assessments. Methods Thirty infants at biological risk aged between three and ten months, of both sexes, and their mothers were included. Assessments were based on asynchronous home videos, where motor skills were evaluated by mothers at home according to AIMS guidelines. The following were analyzed: video quality; stimulus quality; camera position; and physical environment. The video characteristics were analyzed descriptively. The intraclass correlation coefficient was used to calculate interrater reliability and the regression model to determine the influence of contextual factors on the outcome variables. Significance was set at 5%. Results Remote assessment of AIMS exhibited high image and stimulus quality, and a suitable physical environment. Interrater reliability was high for all domains: prone ( r = 0.976); supine ( r = 0.965); sitting ( r = 0.987); standing ( r = 0.945) and total score ( r = 0.980). The contextual factors had no relation with assessment quality. Discussion Assessments conducted remotely by the mothers showed high video quality and interrater reliability, and represent a promising assessment tool for telemedicine in at-risk infants in the first year of life.
Background
Postural stability requires attentional resources. Dual‐task paradigms are used to investigate the attentional demand of the studied tasks. However, no studies have been conducted on the subjects' level of attention, analyzing its association with dual‐task costs (DTC).
Research question
To evaluate the attentional level and DTC on postural sway and cognitive yield in children, adolescents, and young adults, investigating age‐related differences, and to analyze if the participants' attention level is associated with DTC.
Methods
Postural sway and cognitive‐yield of 30 children, 24 adolescents, and 32 young adults were assessed in a dual‐task paradigm. We calculated DTC on postural sway and cognitive yield. Attention level was tested using Psychological Battery for Attention Assessment. We tested the association between DTC and attention level.
Results
Young adults showed higher DTC on area and velocity of postural sway than children and adolescents. No differences in DTC on cognitive yield were found between the groups. Children showed lower attention levels than adolescents and young adults. Attention level was negatively associated with DTC on cognitive yield in young adults. Focused Attention is responsible for 24.4% of the variance in DTC on cognitive yield.
Conclusion
Age impacts DTC on postural stability, but not on cognitive performance. The smaller changes in sway found in children/adolescents when dual‐tasking, potentially reflect less developed attentional levels and postural control, which make them performing postural tasks closed to their stability boundaries, and, therefore, make them prioritize stability protection more than adults. Similar DTC on cognition between groups may reflect an equalization of the chosen cognitive task at everyone's difficulty level. The lower attention levels of children may reflect an attentional system in development, with prioritization o postural tasks when dual‐tasking to maintain stability. Although attention level increases throughout age, attention only predicted DTC on cognition. Better Focused Attention's levels predicted lower DTC on cognitive yield for young adults.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.