Brief description of the EMI

Documenting observations of movement in a way that allows changes in behaviour over time to be reliably identified and shared, as needed, with other members of an inter-professional team is a challenge. While the observation, by nature, will always be subjective, certain techniques are available that provide some 'structure' to the reporting of observations.

One such technique is the Early Movement Indicator, or EMI. The EMI is a play-based observational measure of a child's movement occurring during a 6-minute play period with specific toys and a familiar adult. The evaluation is based on Piaget's principle that play is the work of children; at play, they are exploring and eventually mastering appropriate developmental tasks.

The EMI evaluates the quantity of movement on 5 elements that represents an infant's / child's increasing ability to move through an manipulate his or her environment:
- Transitions quantify the frequency of change from one posture to another
- Locomotion quantifies that amount of grounded (e.g., crawling) and vertical (e.g., walking) mobility
- Gross motor manipulation and object control considers the frequency of manipulating objects during activities of play - throwing / rolling, and catching / trapping.
Each of these movement elements is broken down into indicator skills; the chart below identified acceptable indicator skills for grounded locomotion.

The frequency of observation of each of these movement behaviours for 1-minute periods over the entire 6-minutes of free play.

This is a representative example of how EMI would be used to identify children at risk for motor delays.