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Background: Grip strength is frequently used in research and clinical work and is commonly compared to normative data in clinical settings. To enable accurate interpretation of grip strength values, normative reference values should be close to the demographic, occupational, cultural and geographic characteristics of the individual tested., Objective: Investigate the effects of gender, age, work-group and hand dominance on grip strength for the Israeli population, and to compare the grip strength to two normative studies from the United States., Methods: A cross sectional study. The grip strength of 637 healthy adults was measured using a Jamar dynamometer. The effects for age, gender, hand dominance, and work strain were investigated. Israeli sample results were compared to US norms., Results: Within the Israeli sample, a significant age effect was found for both men and women. This effect was most apparent among the 70+ age groups, in which grip strength was weaker than all the other groups. Males were significantly stronger than females, in both hands, and the dominant hand was significantly stronger, regardless of gender. Results also demonstrated a medium to large effect for type of work on grip strength portraying high manual strain workers to have stronger grip strength. Overall, the grip strength in the Israeli sample was weaker than both US samples., Conclusion: Clinicians should be cautious when comparing grip strength to published norms from a different culture/geographical region. The amount of manual strain invested in various occupational roles should be considered in the assessment and intervention process.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the construct validity of the Miller Assessment for Preschoolers (MAP) and the Pediatric Examination of Educational Readiness (PEER), two assessment tools that occupational therapists and physical therapists can use for early identification of children with developmental disabilities. The sample included 84 Israeli children who were tested on the MAP (42 children with pre-academic problems and 42 typically developing children), and 70 children who were tested on the PEER (35 children with pre-academic problems and 35 typically developing children). Out of this pool of subjects, 30 typically developing children and 30 children with pre-academic problems were tested on both tests and the results were used for additional data analysis. We found differences between the groups' MAP and PEER total scores as well as their developmental indices scores. Children with pre-academic problems scored lower. The supplementary behavioral observations of the tests yielded less definite results. A strong correlation existed between the total scores of the MAP and the PEER, and the total scores of the tests correlated significantly with each of the sub-scores of the other test. The findings support the construct validity of both tests, thereby suggesting that either test can be used to identify children with pre-academic problems.

The purpose of this study was to examine environmental influences on perceptual and motor skills of children from immigrant Ethiopian families in Israel in comparison with those of Israeli-born children. The subjects were divided into groups based on age (6- to 8-yr.-olds and 10- to 12-yr.-olds) and length of time in Israel. The results of this study show that the perceptual and motor performance of 6- to 8-yr.-old, less recent Ethiopian immigrants is similar to that of the recent Ethiopian immigrants of the same age. A difference exists between those two groups and the Israeli-born children of the same age. In the 10- to 12-yr.-old age group, there is a marked difference between the performance of the two groups of Ethiopian immigrants. The difference between the less recent immigrants and the Israeli-born children is smaller for most tasks; however, the less recent immigrants' performance is still poorer than that of the Israeli children. These results are compatible with those of other studies describing the difficulties encountered by children who had not studied in formal educational settings and those who have had that experience.