New directions in pediatric rehabilitation measurement: the growing challenge

The Center on Rehabilitation Effectiveness (CRE) was created in 1998 at Boston University's Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. An important reason for the creation of the Center was demand by purchasers of health services and patients for high quality yet cost-effective rehabilitation programs, particularly with respect to pediatric services. This demand for accountability has created many pressures and challenges for the psychometric community. These challenges include: pediatric rehabilitation assessments that are conceptually grounded in rehabilitation theory; new instruments that are short yet sensitive enough to detect meaningful disability restrictions and that are sensitive enough to measure meaningful change; and new scales that offer real meaningful comparisons across patients. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the Center for Rehabilitation Effectiveness will meet these growing challenges.