Development of the Gross Motor Function Classification System

cerebral palsy has been widely used internationally for clinical, research, and administrative purposes. This paper recounts the ideas and work behind the creation of the GMFCS, reports on the lessons learned, and identifies some philosophical challenges inherent in trying to develop an ordered, valid, and consistent system to describe function in children and adolescents with developmental differences. It is hoped that these ideas will be useful to others who choose to expand the field with additional systems in other areas of childhood neurodisability. The academic foundations of research into childhood dis-ability are relatively new, and are at an important stage of early evolution. Integral to this emerging area of child health is the need for universal measures of aspects of children’s lives and function for use in clinical evaluation an