Assessing Mobility Competences of Children With Intellectual Disabilities: Development and Results of the Mobility Assessment Schedule

This article describes the aims, development, and testing of the Mobility Assessment Schedule (MAS), an instrument assessing the ability of students with intellectual disability (ID), to function effectively as pedestrians in normal traffic. The MAS provides information about individual mobility skills of school-age children with ID and measures the child's traffic skills congruent with safely and independently functioning in traffic situations. Mobility skills are measured in eight areas: visual perception, auditory perception, reaction, memory, attention, motor skills, social skills, and communication. The MAS was tested with 128 students at one school for children with ID in Germany. The internal consistencies of the scale and subscales were reasonable to good. Baseline results showed that the students already possessed—even before mobility training—many skills that are necessary for participation in traffic situations. The MAS is applicable and valid to assess traffic functioning skills of children with ID and can be an important tool for mobility training because it delivers information on various skills, which are necessary to function independently in traffic situations. This inventory can be part of the school's individual educational plans.