Parental Involvement in the Developmental Screening of Their Young Children

Abstract

Because multiple risk factors can influence child development, methods designed to screen young children for developmental problems should incorporate information from various sources in order to cover all potential areas of delay effectively. In this study we combined results from a standardized parent questionnaire with those of an individually administered developmental screening instrument (the Early Screening Inventory) in order to predict more accurately which children will be at risk for school failure. Our results show a decrease in misclassifications after combining the parent measure with the screening instrument, thus increasing the predictive accuracy of the developmental screening process. Implications of our findings are discussed within the context of screening from a perspective of multiple risks and multiple sources of input.