Box and Block Test (BBT)
What It Measures
The Box and Block Test (BBT) measures gross manual dexterity — how quickly and reliably a person can pick up an object with one hand and move it somewhere else. It uses a wooden box divided by a partition, with 150 small blocks starting on one side.
The person moves as many blocks as they can, one at a time, over the partition in 60 seconds. Each hand is tested separately, and the score is simply the number of blocks moved. A block counts only if the fingertips cross the partition; picking up two at once still counts as one, and a block dropped after clearing the partition still counts. Scores are compared against published norms by age and sex, which decline with age, so a result is read against peers rather than in isolation.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Mathiowetz et al. (1985) provide the standardized dimensions, administration procedure, and normative data, and those papers are the source clinicians work from. Norms are only valid with specific sized box and blocks.
