General Movement Assessment: Methodology and Purposes
- Developed by Heinz Prechtl in the 1990s as a qualitative assessment method.
- Based on observation and categorization of spontaneous movement patterns during fetal, neonatal, and early infant periods.
- Specifically identifies and assesses "general movements" (GMs), which involve global movements of all body parts.
- Formalized as "Prechtl’s Method on the Qualitative Assessment of General Movements in Preterm, Term, and Young Infants" (Einspieler et al., 2005).
Clinical Utility and Predictive Value
- Reliable and predictive for several neurological disorders, notably:
- Cerebral palsy (highest predictive accuracy)
- Minor neurological disorders
- Rett syndrome
- Cognitive impairments
- Autism spectrum disorders
Characteristics of Normal General Movements (GMs)
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