Parent report as a means of administering the prescreening developmental questionnaire: an evaluation study

The increasing emphasis on screening the pediatric population for developmental delays requires that rapid and efficient screening tests be developed and evaluated. This study assessed the ability of three rapid screening procedures to predict full Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) results. Ninety children were randomly assigned to one of three prescreening groups. The first group was prescreened with the Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire (PDQ), administered in the "standard" fashion, i.e., mother reads and answers 10 questions about her child's development. The second group was prescreened using a modified means of administering the PDQ (PDQ-M); a health care professional read each PDQ question to the mother. The third group was prescreened with the Alpern-Boll Developmental Profile II, a relatively lengthy procedure utilizing parent report information. All of the children were then tested with the DDST. Each of the prescreening procedures was highly predictive of performance on the DDST. The Alpern-Boll profile, as anticipated, demonstrated greater validity than the PDQ and PDQ-M on six of seven indices of prescreening test validity, generated from a four-group referral matrix. The PDQ-M was more similar to the Alpern-Boll on four indices, while the PDQ was more similar on three. It was judged that the two PDQ procedures were equivalent in their validity characteristics. The PDQ-M appears to be an acceptable means of rapidly screening preschool children for developmental delays.