Title

Activity Measurement

Abstract

Measurement of activity level in children is interesting in its own right, and it poses unique challenges to activity level research. It runs the gamut from subjective questionnaires to highly sophisticated and reliable actigraphs costing thousands of dollars. Sophistication and reliability alone, however, may be insufficient if the purpose is to understand the conditions under which activity level differs among children and how best to assess these differences. Millisecond changes in activity level may be collected for several weeks at a time and downloaded to a computer to scrutinize differences between children with and without a particular clinical disorder. Little is known about the activity level in children with clinical disorders relative to the burgeoning literature on normal development. Extant literature suggests that the activity level differences associated with most clinical disorders of childhood represent quantitative deviations. Differences in activity level topography-activity level's unique form and expression in a particular situation or setting-may also have special meaning for understanding the movement of some children. Measuring activity level in children with particular clinical disorders using the measures reviewed must be supplemented by behavioral observation to understand the subtleties, contextual factors, and possible functional nature of children's motor activity. Actigraphs may play an increasingly larger role in clinical assessments, but they are functionally limited until standardized age and gender norms are developed. © 2006 Copyright © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved..

Publication Date

12-1-2006

Publication Title

Clinician's Handbook of Child Behavioral Assessment

Number of Pages

125-157

Document Type

Article; Book Chapter

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012343014-4/50007-1

Socpus ID

64249098223 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/64249098223

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