The development and testing of a module on child functioning for identifying children with disabilities on surveys. II: Question development and pretesting.
Meredith Massey
PMID 30049637WHAT IT FOUND
Draft survey questions about child functioning confused parents, so items on walking aids, hearing, communication, and emotions were rewritten.
The revised questions are clearer, but this is a survey tool.
Key findings
01The module was tested through 385 interviews with parents or guardians of children aged 2 to 17 in six countries across four rounds.
02Almost all original items were revised or deleted because wording, scope, or conceptual focus was unclear.
03Country context and whether the child had a disability affected answers, so items were split, reworded, or given local examples.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The sample was chosen to test questions, not to represent all parents, so the findings cannot be generalized statistically. Some interviewers were relatively inexperienced, which may have affected how fully parents' reasoning was captured. Even after revisions, country context and whether the child had a disability still changed how some questions were understood. The study tested how questions were understood; it does not report the later field testing of the module.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that the module identifies disabilities accurately in clinical care. It reports how parents interpreted draft survey items and how the items were revised.