Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Nancy Getchell, Dept. of Health, Nutrition, and Exercise Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

In view of the current use of the Carolina Curriculum for Preschoolers with Special Needs (Carolina) as an alternative to the widely used Brigance Diagnostic Inventory of Early Development (Brigance) for assessing the motor development of preschool aged children, a study was undertaken to establish the validity of the Carolina using the Brigance as a criterion test. A sample of 2 7 preschool special education children ranging in age from 36 to 71 months from three categories-learning handicapped (LH), severely handicapped (SH) and severely handicapped Down's Syndrome children (SHD)-were assessed by an adapted physical education specialist. Each subject was evaluated on two separate days within one week using the Carolina and the Brigance. The subjects were also evaluated concurrently by their classroom teachers using a Teacher Observation check sheet prepared by the adapted physical education specialist. Correlation coefficients using the developmental age scores obtained on the three test instruments and the correlations comparing the three categories to each test instrument ranged from .90 to .98 (r. (25) = .486, p < .01 ). These findings offered strong support for the concurrent validity of the Carolina. Additional analysis of the data using a 3 x 3 ANOVA for repeated measures resulted in a significant F ratio for the dependent variable of functional level, E (2,24) = 4.82, p = 0.174. The Sheffe post hoc analysis procedure indicated a statistically significant difference between the LH and the SHD categories. vi