The Test of Playfulness and children with physical disabilities. The Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapists are concerned with the study of play and its assessment because play is oneof three primary occupations. Key words: Rasch analysis • assessment • validity • reliability The purpose of this study was to examine reliability andvalidity of the Test ofPlayfulness (ToP) (Bundy, 1998) with children who have physical disabil-ities but no known cognitive limitations, to compare their scores with those of able-bodied peers, and to examine any patterns of difference in test items between groups. Data from allof thechildren in the normative ToP data set meeting inclusion criteria (n =2S) were paired with data from theable-bod-iedchild in thenormative ToP data setwhowas closest in age andofthesame gender. Data for all of the children were gathered during two, IS-minute video taped free play sessions. Playfulness was evaluated on24 items. Rasch analysis revealed evidence that100 % oftheraters scored theToP reliably and data from 88 % of the children with disabilities conformed to the pattern of playfulness typical ofmostof thechildren represented in the test's normative data set.Four ToP items accounted for most of the unexpected ratings. The mean ToP score of the two groups did not differ. Although decreased play-fulness does not appear to be a sequela to physical disability, future research is needed to monitor ToP validity and potential differences in patterns of playfulness in children whohave physical disabilities. Lynne Harkness, MS, OTR, was a graduate student at the time of this study