A computer-based questionnaire was developed to help parents who have not received specialized training to determine whether their young children need further assessment for diagnosis of developmentally at-risk status. The validity of the questionnair...
A computer-based questionnaire was developed to help parents who have not received specialized training to determine whether their young children need further assessment for diagnosis of developmentally at-risk status. The validity of the questionnaire was examined to see how precisely the parent-completed computer-based questionnaire assesses children's development as compared to the Child Development Inventory, a standardized assessment tool.
Forty-six monthers who had 15-month-to 36-month-old children participated in this study. The mothers completed both the computer-based questionnaire and the Child Development Inventory.
Correlations among the five domains of the compter-based questionnaire and the corrresopnding domains of the Child Developmental Inventory were significant and strong(from r = .61 to r = .86, p<.001). The sensitivity of the computer-based questionnaire, the percentage of developmentally at-risk children correctly identified according to the Child Development Inventory, was 80%. The specificity of the computer-based questionnaire, the percentage of children without problems correctly identified according to the Child Development Inventory, was 100%. The computer-based questionnaire had brief administration time with a mean of 8.8 minutes. These results suggest that parent-completed, computer-based questionnaire is a valid tool in screening 15-month-old children's development.