The Purdue Pegboard Test is a psychomotor test of

manual dexterity Fine motor skill (or dexterity) is the coordination of small muscles in movement with the eyes, hands and fingers. The complex levels of manual dexterity that humans exhibit can be related to the nervous system. Fine motor skills aid in the growt ...

and bimanual coordination. The test involves two different abilities: gross movements of arms, hands, and fingers, and fine motor extremity, also called "fingerprint" dexterity. Poor Pegboard performance is a sign of deficits in complex, visually guided, or coordinated movements that are likely mediated by circuits involving the

basal ganglia The basal ganglia (BG), or basal nuclei, are a group of subcortical nuclei, of varied origin, in the brains of vertebrates. In humans, and some primates, there are some differences, mainly in the division of the globus pallidus into an extern ...

History

Dr. Joseph Tiffin, an Industrial Psychologist at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

, designed the test in 1948. It was originally intended for assessing the dexterity of assembly line workers.

Method and interpretation

The pegboard consists of a board with two parallel rows with 25 holes into which cylindrical metal pegs are placed by the examinee. The test involves a total of four trials. To begin, there is a brief practice. The subsets for preferred, non-preferred, and both hands require the patient to place the pins in the holes as quickly as possible, with the score being the number of pins placed in 30 seconds.

Neurocognitive disorders

The Purdue Pegboard test predicted worse adult

tic A tic is a sudden, repetitive, nonrhythmic motor movement or vocalization involving discrete muscle groups.American Psychiatric Association (2000)DSM-IV-TR: Tourette's Disorder.''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'', 4th ed., ...

severity and correlated with tic severity at the time of childhood assessment. Purdue Pegboard performance deficiencies have been linked to poor social functioning in

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...

Industry

Results from a correlation analysis suggested that a person's capability on the Purdue Pegboard Test is a good predictor of their ability to use a mobile phone in cold weather.

Reliability

One-trial administration of the Purdue Pegboard Test produced test-retest reliability of 0.60 to 0.79. The three-trial administration test-retest reliability ranged from 0.82 to 0.91.

References

{{Neuropsychology tests Neuropsychological tests Cognitive tests