Concurrent Validity of the Bayley Screening and the Bayley-III in Persian-Speaking Children

Area of Science:

• Developmental Pediatrics
• Psychometrics
• Child Psychology

Background:

• The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (Bayley-III) is a comprehensive tool for assessing child development.
• However, its lengthy administration time and cost can be prohibitive in clinical settings.
• A validated screening tool is needed to efficiently identify developmental delays in high-risk infants.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the concurrent validity of the Bayley screening tool compared to the Bayley-III in Persian-speaking children.
• To assess the accuracy of the Bayley screening in identifying developmental delays across different age groups.

Main Methods:

• Concurrent validity was assessed by administering both the Bayley screening and Bayley-III to 403 children aged 1-42 months.
• The Bayley-III served as the criterion measure, with a cut-off score of 1.0 standard deviation below the mean.
• Sensitivity, specificity, Pearson correlation, and Cohen's kappa were calculated to measure the association between the two tests.

Main Results:

• The Bayley screening demonstrated good sensitivity across cognitive (70.7%), receptive communication (81.4%), expressive communication (67.7%), fine motor (60.7%), and gross motor (58.1%) scales.
• Specificity values ranged from 87.8% to 100%.
• Substantial Cohen's kappa coefficients and significant Pearson correlations ( > 0.884) indicated strong agreement between the two measures, with optimal sensitivity observed in infants aged 1-12 months.

Conclusions:

• The Bayley screening tool exhibits strong concurrent validity with the Bayley-III in Persian-speaking children.
• It is a reliable and efficient measure for identifying developmental delays in this population.
• The findings support the use of the Bayley screening as a valuable tool in early childhood developmental assessments.