Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS)

Uses
The AMPS is a standardized, criterion-referenced assessment for clients 2 years and older. It enables therapists to provide a standardized measure of the quality of a person’s ADL performance. These measures are ideal for establishing baseline performance and evaluating for change in occupational performance. Additionally, the person’s ADL motor and ADL process measures can be compared to age norms for persons 3 years of age or older. The AMPS software reports normalized standard scores, standardized z-scores, and percentile rank. Those trained in administration and scoring of the AMPS come away with the skills to interpret norm-referenced and criterion-referenced AMPS reports and to identify skills most impacting performance. They are able to use the results of the AMPS to determine a person’s need for occupational therapy services, write client goals that are occupation-based, and plan interventions that meet an individual’s needs. Subsequent evaluations using the AMPS provide a sensitive tool to document change in ADL performance and outcomes of intervention.

Scoring
The AMPS is an evaluation of occupational performance expressed in terms of the quality (efficiency, safety, difficulty, and independence) of the smallest observable units of occupational performance – the ADL motor and ADL process skills that are linked together, one by one as the person enacts ADL task performances. Because each person is observed performing two ADL tasks that have been identified as problems of occupational performance, and because a 4-point rating scale is used to score each of 16 ADL motor and 20 ADL process skills for each task performed, the result is a very sensitive and powerful evaluation of the quality of occupational performance.

AMPS Tasks
There are currently 102 calibrated ADL tasks standardized for use with the AMPS. An AMPS observation involves having each person evaluated perform at least two personal or domestic ADL tasks that the person has had prior experience performing (e.g., pouring a glass of juice; making a bed; preparing eggs, toast, and coffee, vacuuming the floor; ironing a shirt; getting dressed). From among a subset of culturally relevant and appropriately challenging ADL tasks, the person chooses which tasks to perform. The assessment requires no special equipment and can be administered in any relevant setting within a 30 to 40 minute period.

Administration
An AMPS evaluation begins with an interview of the client so that the therapist can determine which standardized AMPS tasks are familiar, relevant and of sufficient challenge to the person being evaluated. The person performs each self-chosen task in a familiar environment the way he or she usually does it. After completion of each of the AMPS tasks, the person is scored on 16 ADL motor and 20 ADL process skill items according to the criteria in the AMPS manual using a 4-point ordinal scale.

This page was last modified on 26 August 2010