The Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA) for functional assessments has been recognized as the most sensitive scale in a longitudinal analysis of FRDA patients in comparison with ICARS and FARS. SARA has been considered the best choice for its high construct validity, its good effect size and for its compact structure. Sensitivity to longitudinal change of SARA was evaluated in adult FRDA subjects by Marelli and coll. Furthermore, although there are no validated scales for childhood, SARA is reliably applicable to children beyond the age of 10 years and proved to be more suitable for long-term quantitative ataxia assessment from child- to adulthood in comparison to ICARS and BARS. However, the complexity of the neurological phenotype of FRDA due to the intricate interplay between cerebellar degeneration, somatosensory loss and muscle atrophy leads to explore the specific functional and gait changes over time more deeply and with the use of sensitive and objective measures.