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Background: Assessment of general movements (GMs) at three months is considered useful for prediction of adverse neurological outcome in high risk infants., Aims: To study the prevalence of abnormal GMs in infants born from women with early-onset hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and the association of GMs with neurodevelopmental outcome at one year., Study Design: Prospective study, part of a randomised controlled trial of pre-birth management strategies., Subjects: Infants born from women with early-onset hypertensive disorders of pregnancy., Outcome Measures: GMs observation and neurological examination at term and three months corrected age; at one year neurological examination and Bayley Scales of Infant Development., Results: From 216 women included, 175 of 178 surviving infants (mean gestational age 31.6 weeks [SD 2.3], mean birth weight 1346 grams [SD 458]), were examined at three months. At term age normal, mildly abnormal and definitely abnormal GMs were observed in 54%, 36% and 10% respectively; and at three months in 47%, 40% and 13%. Mildly or definitely abnormal GMs at three months were not associated with abnormal neurological examination at one year, however, they were associated with delayed psychomotor development at one year (p = 0.01)., Conclusions: In this prospective study, including small for gestational age, preterm infants about half of them did not have normal GMs at term and three months. There was no association of GMs at term nor three months with neurological outcome at one year, but there was a significant association of GMs at three months with one year psychomotor development.

Background: This study describes preliminary stages of developing a checklist to enable practitioners to determine the behavioural responses of children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities to sensory stimuli. Reliability of currently used checklists is low, with a focus on the child's sensory integration instead of perception., Methods: The inter-rater reliability of a checklist was determined, and adjustments were made to improve reliability., Results: Strikingly, the reliability decreased for all components after adjustment. The effect of a smaller item pool was ruled out. The effect of familiarity of teachers as raters was examined., Conclusions: Results show that teachers who know a child well could interpret that child's behaviour more accurately than persons who were unfamiliar with the child. However, reliability of the checklist remains a problem.