Systematic assessment of infants and children in aquatic environments in early childhood education - Validation of an assessment instrument

Abstract

Introduction: Knowing the relation of chronological age with the appearance of children's abilities in aquatic environment permites an adjusted prescription of their activity in this context.

Objectives: Knowing the development sequence of the child displacement in the water, even under 2 years old, is something still unexplored, so the validation of tools that allow this analysis, is assumed as a first step to take.

Method: First, 22 children between 5 and 36 months of age were seen and filmed, attending a "baby swim" program, to identify the most common displacement patterns and possible levels of development. Simultaneously, with the same goal, a bibliographic analysis was carried out on pedagogical intervention methodologies.

Results: The filmed records and the analysis of the bibliography allowed the construction of a matrix, composed of 5 development categories, which was submitted, for content validation, to the scrutiny of 2 specialized evaluators - they considered it valid. To verify it objectivity and reliability, representative images of each category were collected in a universe of 55 children between 5 months and 5 years, allowing the edition of a validation film to be visualized by 2 previously trained observers, who assessed the displacement of the children. We measured the agreement value of their evaluations at a given moment and 24 hours later. The interobserver agreement and reliability values scored 100%.

Conclusions: The instrument was considered valid.

Keywords: baby, aquatic environment, assessment, maturation, displacement.