The Motor and Learning Questionnaire: Assessing 3 Domains of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning Via Parent Report

Background: Motor skills are a critical component of healthy development and – especially in young children – motor development can act as rate-limiting factor for development across domains. Further, motor deficits are commonly observed in a number of developmental disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Therefore, individual differences in motor abilities are important predictors for developmental outcomes. In contrast to the language domain, parent-report measures of motor development are rare but needed when direct administration is not possible or time constrains limit the number of measures that can be collected. Here, we report findings on the Motor and Learning Questionnaire (MLQ), a novel parent-report measure that is based on the widely used Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) and assesses behavior in Gross Motor, Fine Motor, and Visual Reception domains.

Objectives: To develop an indirect parent questionnaire of motor and cognitive functioning and to compare it with a standardized direct-observation measure (MSEL) in the same children.

Methods: Participants were 36 infants (aged between 3-18 months) who participated in a study on early detection of ASDs. The majority of participants had an older sibling with ASD. The MLQ was mailed to each family and completed by a parent prior to their visit to our lab. Subsequently, all infants were tested on the MSEL by a trained experimenter. Scores from the MLQ were calculated using a ceiling criterion method (same scale as MSEL scores) and using MLQ-original scores, which incorporate parent’s certainty.

Results: Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to compare scores of the MLQ and the MSEL. Correlations were highly significant between the two measures in all domains: Gross Motor (r₃₆ = .93, p < .01); Fine Motor (r₃₆ = .90, p < .01); Visual Reception (r₃₆ = .71, p < .01). Paired-sample t-tests revealed no differences between MLQ and MSEL scores in all three domains (all ps > .4). MLQ-original scores are on a different scale than the MSEL but additionally reflect parent’s response certainty. Correlations between the MSEL raw scores and MLQ-original scores where excellent in the Gross Motor domain (r₃₆ = .94, p < .01), and strong in both the Fine Motor (r₃₆ = .88, p < .01) and the Visual Reception domains (r₃₆ = .87, p < .01). Completion of the MLQ took parents approximately 16 minutes. 

Conclusions: Parent reported scores on the MLQ are highly correlated with the directly assessed MSEL scores and parents did not systematically overestimate their child’s abilities on the MLQ. Further, the MLQ extends the MSEL scores by incorporating parent’s certainty. Thus, the MLQ provides experimenters with an alternative way to obtain MSEL scores from families when direct assessment is not possible or not desirable. The MLQ is not meant to replace the MSEL, but rather to be used alongside the MSEL (e.g., in short-term treatment designs or to improve measure validity) or in situations where administration of the MSEL is not possible (e.g., for web-based surveys). Correlations between the MLQ and another motor scale – the Peabody Scales of Motor Development – are currently being explored.