Reproducibility and Validity of the Abbreviated Scale of Development and Frequency of Abnormal Child Development in Medellin

Introduction: There are no research studies on child development in Medellin, nor is the psychometric performance of the instruments used for their measurement known.

Objective: Evaluating the reproducibility and validity of the Abbreviated Scale of Development and determining the frequency of abnormal child development in an area of Medellin-Colombia.

Methods: A transversal study and psychometric evaluation of 141 children less than 5 years of age were performed with the Abbreviated Scale of Development. The description was performed using a summary of measurements and frequencies. Reliability was determined with Cronbach’s α and internal consistency and discriminating power with Spearman’s correlations. Content validity and predictive validity were calculated through exploratory factor analysis. The degree of child development was compared based on gender and age group using the chi-square test.

Results: The 4 dimensions of child development showed the following: Cronbach’s α higher than 0.85; greater than 90% of success in internal consistency and discriminating power; 100% success in the content validity for Gross and Fine Motor Skills; and explained variance of 52.3%. The frequency of children at the Alert level was 15.6% for the Listening and Language and Personal-Social dimensions and approximately 8% for Motor Skills.

Conclusion: The excellent reproducibility and validity are evidence of the availability of a scale for screening child development in Medellin. The high frequency of children with a Medium or Alert level of psycho-social and motor skills development corroborates the need to improve clinical interventions, public health and education policy for this group.

Author(s):

Cardona Arias JA,Jaramillo Caro AM and Sanchez Rojas JI

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