Purpose: Infants with Down syndrome (DS) who are admitted to rehabilitation centers are several weeks old, and the tests that they undergo are often not specific enough to highlight the main developmental disorders in the first postnatal trimester. The aim of this study was to assess the possibility of using the Test of Infant Motor Performance (TIMP) to examine motor development of children with DS.
Methods: Using the TIMP, 141 infants, including 64 infants with DS, with a mean age of 9.4 weeks, were examined. The control group represented 77 infants without developmental disorders, with a mean age of 10.0 weeks.
Results: The results show that children with DS achieve lower TIMP scores in comparison with children without developmental disorders.
Conclusions: The TIMP is a sensitive measure of delayed motor development in infants with DS and can be used to confirm the need for therapy.