Psychometric Properties of the Infant Toddler Activity Card Sort

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Occupational Therapy
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Caregiver engagement in goal development is crucial for early childhood participation.
• The Infant Toddler Activity Card Sort (ITACS) is a novel measure designed for this purpose.
• Initial psychometric evaluation of the ITACS is necessary.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the test-retest reliability of the ITACS.
• To assess the concurrent validity of the ITACS with the PEDI-CAT.
• To examine between-group differences (typically developing vs. developmental delay) using the ITACS.

Main Methods:

• Caregivers (N=208) of children aged 0-3 years participated.
• Participants included typically developing (TD) children and those with developmental delay (DD).
• The ITACS and Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory-Computer Adaptive Test (PEDI-CAT) were administered, with a subset (n=117) reassessed after 2 weeks.

Main Results:

• The ITACS demonstrated moderate concurrent validity when compared to the PEDI-CAT.
• Children with DD exhibited significantly more activity concerns on the ITACS than TD children.
• Adequate test-retest reliability for the ITACS was not achieved in this study.

Conclusions:

• The ITACS serves as a valuable tool for identifying caregiver concerns regarding activity engagement in early childhood.
• Interventions can be specifically designed to address these identified concerns.
• Further refinement of the ITACS is needed to improve its reliability for measuring participation.