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Children and adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) exhibit a mixture of cognitive, motor, and psychosocial limitation. Identifying specific inadequacies in motor proficiency in youth with ID would improve therapeutic management to enhance functional capacity and health-related physical activity. The purpose of this study was to initiate descriptive data collection of gross motor skills of youth with ID and compare those skills with competency norms. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2) was used to measure 6 items for balance (BAL), 5 items for upper limb coordination (ULC), and 6 items for bilateral coordination (BLC) of 123 males (ages 8–18) with ID but without Down syndrome. The authors performed 2,840 assessments (10–32 for each item); 944, 985, and 913 for BAL, ULC, and BLC, respectively. Mean scores for all age groups for BAL, ULC, and BLC were consistently below BOT-2 criteria. Overall motor skills of males with ID are below the competence expected for children and adolescents without disabilities.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between VO₂max and the 1/2-mile run-walk and the reliability of each in children with mental retardation (MR). Twenty-three children (13 boys, 10 girls) with mild or moderate MR participated in the study. Two maximal treadmill protocols with metabolic measurements and two 1/2-mile run-walk trials were randomly conducted on separate days. There was no difference between Trial 1 and Trial 2 for VO₂max (28.2 vs. 29.6 ml · kg⁻¹ · min⁻¹), maximal heart rate (175 vs. 177 bpm), or run-walk time (7.2 vs. 7.1 min). The test-retest correlations were r = .90 for VO₂max, r = .81 for maximal heart rate, and r = .96 for the 1/2-mile run-walk (p < .05). The correlation between VO₂max and the 1/2-mile run-walk was r = −.60 (p < .05). Adding body mass index to the model improved R to .67 (SEE = 7.3). The 1/2-mile run-walk was a reliable test, but had questionable validity as an indicator of aerobic capacity in children with mild and moderate MR.

Youth with intellectual disabilities (IDs) demonstrate below-criteria motor competence (MC) compared with typically developing (TD) youth. Whether differences in MC exist for youth with ID from different countries is unknown. This study examined the MC of youth with ID from Brazil (BR) and the United States (US) and compared it with norms for TD youth as established by the Bruininks–Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2). The authors measured 19 BOT-2 test items for bilateral coordination, balance, and upper limb coordination of 502 youth (BR = 252, US = 250) with ID (6–21 years). Raw scores were converted to %ceiling (percentile of highest expected scores). For all test items, no significant differences were seen between BR and US participants in %ceiling scores. Participants from both countries demonstrated equivalent to slightly below BOT-2 norms in 14 of the 19 test items, with lowest scores seen in contralateral synchronizing bilateral coordination, balancing on one leg, and ball handling.