What is the BOT-2? The Bruininks-Oseretsky motor proficiency test explained

The BOT-2 is the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition, an individually administered test of fine and gross motor skills for children and young adults ages 4 through 21. Published by Pearson in 2005 and authored by Robert H. Bruininks and Brett D. Bruininks, it asks examinees to complete game-like physical tasks, from drawing lines through paths to catching balls and doing push-ups, and converts their performance into standardized scores. Occupational therapists and physical therapists use it to identify motor difficulties, plan therapy, and track progress. This article explains what the BOT-2 measures, how it is scored, who uses it, where it came from, and how it differs from a cognitive ability test.

According to Pearson, the BOT-2 covers a broad range of motor skills through eight subtests, each pairing into one of four "motor-area composites," which are cluster scores that summarize related skills. The RehabMeasures database at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab describes the structure this way:

• Fine manual control: the Fine Motor Precision and Fine Motor Integration subtests, which involve careful pencil-and-paper work such as drawing along a path, folding paper, and copying shapes.

• Manual coordination: the Manual Dexterity and Upper-Limb Coordination subtests, which include speeded object handling (transferring pennies, placing pegs in a pegboard) and ball skills such as catching, dribbling, and throwing at a target.

• Body coordination: the Bilateral Coordination and Balance subtests, which cover tasks that require both sides of the body to work together along with balance items such as standing on one leg on a balance beam with eyes open or closed.

• Strength and agility: the Running Speed and Agility and Strength subtests, which use shuttle runs, one-legged hops, push-ups, and sit-ups.

The four composites sum into a Total Motor Composite. Pearson's interpretive materials describe this overall score as the most reliable measure of general motor proficiency the test provides. The publisher also offers separate Fine Motor and Gross Motor composite scores for examiners who administer only half of the battery.

Pearson lists the BOT-2 age range as 4 years, 0 months through 21 years, 11 months, which spans preschool through the end of the typical college age. Everything is administered one-on-one by a trained examiner using physical materials such as pegboards, balls, and mats.

The full battery, called the Complete Form, takes about 45 to 60 minutes according to the publisher. Two half-length options, a Fine Motor Form and a Gross Motor Form, each take about 25 to 30 minutes. There is also a Short Form of 14 items drawn from all eight subtests that takes about 15 to 20 minutes and yields a single overall score. A validation study by Jirovec and colleagues in Frontiers in Pediatrics reported that Short Form scores correlated about 0.76 with Complete Form scores in school children. The same study found the Short Form flagged most children with genuinely weak motor skills but was much less accurate at distinguishing average from above-average performers, so it works better as a quick screen than as a full evaluation.

The BOT-2 is a "norm-referenced" test, meaning a child's performance is compared with that of other children the same age rather than against a fixed checklist. Pearson's scoring documentation reports two main metrics. Each subtest produces a "scale score" with a mean of 15 and a standard deviation of 5. Each composite, including the Total Motor Composite, produces a "standard score" with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10, so a composite score of 40 sits one standard deviation below the age-group average. Examiners also receive percentile ranks, age equivalents, and descriptive categories that run from "well below average" to "well above average."

Note that this metric differs from the IQ-style scale (mean 100, standard deviation 15) used by many cognitive tests, so a BOT-2 standard score of 50 is average, and scores cannot be compared digit-for-digit with IQ scores. As with any standardized test, a single score carries measurement error, and Pearson's score reports present each score with a confidence interval. The RehabMeasures database summarizes generally strong reliability evidence for the composites, including test-retest values around .77 to .83 and interrater agreement near .98, with the norm sample drawing on roughly 1,500 examinees ages 4 to 21.

Pearson identifies occupational therapists, physical therapists, adaptive physical education teachers, and special education professionals as the main users. In a published review, Deitz and colleagues describe the test as a standardized, norm-referenced measure used by physical and occupational therapists in both clinic and school settings to characterize motor performance and to support decisions about diagnosis, placement, and intervention planning.

One frequent clinical application is the evaluation of "developmental coordination disorder" (DCD), a diagnosis given to children whose motor coordination falls substantially below age expectations and interferes with daily life. The international clinical practice recommendations on DCD published by Blank and colleagues in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology include the BOT-2 among the standardized motor instruments reviewed for assessing the motor impairment criterion of the diagnosis. The BOT-2 also appears in research and practice alongside narrower motor measures. A therapist evaluating handwriting difficulty, for example, might pair it with the Beery VMI, which isolates visual-motor integration, while a neuropsychologist might use a speeded dexterity task such as the Grooved Pegboard Test within a broader battery. In that sense the BOT-2 sits near the motor end of the toolkit described in our overview of neuropsychological testing.

The hyphenated name records a long lineage. Motor scales carrying the Oseretsky name circulated in American psychology decades before the current test; psychologist William Sloan, for instance, published the Lincoln-Oseretsky Motor Development Scale in 1955. Robert Bruininks built on that tradition when he published the original Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency in 1978, and the review by Deitz and colleagues notes that this 1978 test was revised and released as the BOT-2 in 2005.

The story did not stop there. Pearson published a Third Edition, the BOT-3, in the summer of 2024. According to the publisher, the BOT-3 extends the age range to 4 through 25 years, 11 months, keeps eight core subtests while replacing Running Speed and Agility with a Dynamic Movement subtest, adds a supplementary Extended Balance subtest, and introduces growth scale values for tracking change over time. A separate BOT-3 Brief serves as the short screening option. Because the BOT-2 accumulated two decades of research and remains in wide clinical use, many reports and studies you encounter will still reference BOT-2 scores, but new purchasers are now directed to the BOT-3.

The BOT-2 and an intelligence test answer different questions. The BOT-2 measures how well the body executes movement; an IQ test measures reasoning, knowledge, and mental efficiency. A child can score in the average range on one and well below average on the other, which is precisely why clinicians assessing conditions like DCD look at motor and cognitive results side by side.

For readers interested in the cognitive side, the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test, developed by RIOT IQ with psychometrician Dr. Russell T. Warne, measures adult intelligence through 15 subtests across six cognitive indices: verbal reasoning, fluid reasoning, spatial ability, working memory, processing speed, and reaction time. It takes about 52 minutes, is designed for adults 18 and older, and reports scores on the familiar mean-100, standard-deviation-15 scale. It is an online measure of cognitive ability, so it does not assess motor proficiency and does not replace an individually administered diagnostic evaluation such as the BOT-2 or a full neuropsychological workup. Adults who want a rigorous, research-based picture of their cognitive abilities can take the RIOT IQ test.

BOT-2 is short for the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition, published by Pearson in 2005 and authored by Robert H. Bruininks and Brett D. Bruininks.

Pearson lists an age range of 4 years, 0 months through 21 years, 11 months. The newer BOT-3 extends the range to 25 years, 11 months.

The Complete Form takes about 45 to 60 minutes. The Fine Motor and Gross Motor forms each take about 25 to 30 minutes, and the 14-item Short Form takes about 15 to 20 minutes.

Composite standard scores have a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10, so scores from roughly 40 to 60 fall within one standard deviation of average. Subtest scale scores have a mean of 15 and a standard deviation of 5.

No. The BOT-2 measures fine and gross motor proficiency. It does not assess reasoning, vocabulary, memory, or other cognitive abilities that IQ tests measure.

Pearson released the Third Edition (BOT-3) in the summer of 2024 with updated norms and an expanded age range. The BOT-2 is still widely referenced in clinical reports and research, but the BOT-3 is the current edition.

1. Pearson. (2005). Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2). Pearson Assessments. pearsonassessments.com

2. Pearson. (2024). Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Third Edition (BOT-3). Pearson Assessments. pearsonassessments.com

3. Pearson. (2013). BOT-2 Complete Form sample report. Pearson Assessments. pearsonassessments.com

4. Deitz, J. C., Kartin, D., & Kopp, K. (2007). Review of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2). Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics, 27(4), 87-102. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

5. Jirovec, J., Musalek, M., & Mess, F. (2019). Test of Motor Proficiency Second Edition (BOT-2): Compatibility of the complete and short form and its usefulness for middle-age school children. Frontiers in Pediatrics, 7, 153. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

6. Blank, R., Barnett, A. L., Cairney, J., Green, D., Kirby, A., Polatajko, H., Rosenblum, S., Smits-Engelsman, B., Sugden, D., Wilson, P., & Vincon, S. (2019). International clinical practice recommendations on the definition, diagnosis, assessment, intervention, and psychosocial aspects of developmental coordination disorder. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 61(3), 242-285. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

7. Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. (n.d.). Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition. RehabMeasures Database. sralab.org

8. Sloan, W. (1955). The Lincoln-Oseretsky motor development scale. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 51(2), 183-252. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Hero photo: A school physical education equipment room stocked with playground balls, basketballs, beaded jump ropes, scooter boards, and pins. Photo by David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).