The Parent and Child Memory Questionnaires: Convergent validity, factor structure, internal consistency, and...

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• The Parent Memory Questionnaire (PMQ) and Child Memory Questionnaire (Child MQ) are used to evaluate children's daily memory functioning.
• However, their psychometric properties, crucial for reliable assessment, have not been well-established.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish the psychometric properties of the PMQ and Child MQ in neurotypical children.
• To investigate the convergent validity of these questionnaires with objective memory tests.

Main Methods:

• The study involved 239 neurotypical children and 306 parents from Australia and Canada.
• Children completed the PMQ, Child MQ, and standardized verbal memory tests.
• Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the underlying structure of the questionnaires.

Main Results:

• Convergent validity with memory tests was low, with significant correlations only found for the WISC IV Digit Span Forward.
• Factor analysis revealed distinct structures for the PMQ (two factors) and Child MQ (four factors), reducing item numbers.
• Both questionnaires demonstrated good internal consistency, and adequate inter-rater reliability, though children reported poorer memory than parents.

Conclusions:

• The PMQ and Child MQ exhibit different factorial structures, indicating they assess various memory facets.
• These questionnaires can serve as valuable complements to objective memory tests in the comprehensive evaluation of children's memory functioning.