Assessment of Children's Hand Skills: User's manual. Queensland, Australia: Children's Hand Skills Assessment Hub

The ACHS is a naturalistic observational instrument that assesses 2- to 12-year-old children's hand skill performance when engaged in various types of daily activities in everyday contexts. The ACHS is developed for occupational therapists, and potential users may also include other child-related professionals (eg, paediatricians, neurologists, physiotherapists, developmental psychologists, and educators) and researchers who are involved in completion of children's hand skill assessments. This User's manual presents detailed definitions, examples, and scoring criteria of a comprehensive range of hand skill items for therapists' learning about evaluating children's real-life hand skill performance. It also contains information about scoring interpretation of assessment results as well as development and validation of the ACHS. The key features of the ACHS include: 1. Reflect assessment of real-life hand skill performance 2. Include a comprehensive range of hand skills and activities for assessments 3. Be applicable for children with varied health conditions and a wide age range 4. Incorporate a family-centred approach to assessment 5. Be based on a naturalistic observational format. This User's manual presents detailed definitions, examples, and scoring criteria of a comprehensive range of hand skill items for therapists learning about evaluating children's real-life hand skill performance