Examining graphomotor skills in preschool children

Fine Motor and graphomotor skills are essential to the proper development of children as well as to their participation in a variety of daily activities such as painting, coloring, and writing.Gilboa Functional Test (GIFT) is a new Israeli norm referenced screening tool developed by Dr. Yafit Gilboa from the School of Occupational Therapy. The GIFT is a unique tool that examines graphomotor skills based on the daily functioning of children in preschool according to the educational program in Israel. The tool was developed to assist occupational therapists in screening children aged 3-6 with suspected developmental delays in the field of fine motor and graphomotor.A recent study published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy (BJOT) describes the process for developing and validating the tool. The study included 611 Israeli children aged 3-6 studying in the Public, Ultra-Orthodox and Muslim schools.The results of the research show that the test enables a reliable examination of the graphometric skills in a repeated tests as well as by various raters. It was also found that the tool has a concurrent validity with other diagnostic tools in the field of fine motor and graphomotor. Given this, significant differences were found between children attending general and special education preschools.The GIFT is suitable for use by developmental occupational therapists to screen children suspected of motor developmental delay. The tool is already used by occupational therapists in clinical frameworks that provide services in the area of child development in Israel. The tool is also used by Israeli researchers and around the world.Link to Dr. Gilboa's Lab websiteLink to full article at BJOTGilboa, Yafit. ""Development and initial validation of the Gilboa functional test (GIFT): A unique measure for preschool graphomotor screening."" British Journal of Occupational Therapy(2017): 0308022617711670.