How well do care providers know the children with developmental disabilities they care for?

To assess the knowledge from memory of caregivers about the most significant impairments contributing to additional care needs in children with developmental disabilities in therapeutic toddler groups.

Children's needs for additional care due to impairments of physical health, motor, sensory, mental and voice and speech functions were separately classified using the capacity profile (CAP). Twenty-three therapists and teachers of toddler groups in two regional centres for paediatric rehabilitation assessed the CAP individually, unprepared and without consulting their notes or the clinical record. These CAP scores (150 CAPs of 44 children) were compared with those based on the clinical record using weighted kappa statistics.

Weighted kappa values for the two sets of CAP scores ranged from 0.22-0.74 (median 0.53), with the lowest scores for the sensory domain (median 0.32, range 0.22-0.52) and the highest scores for the motor domain (median 0.62, range 0.56-0.74).

Team members in general had only moderate remembered knowledge of the current impairments determining need of additional care. Remembered knowledge was the poorest for domains not easily observable, such as sensory functions. As this knowledge is essential for optimizing the child's daily environment, improvement of this type of knowledge should be facilitated.