The Denver Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire (PDQ)

Abstract

To facilitate periodic developmental screening of all children, a Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire (PDQ) was created to identify those children who require a more thorough screening with the Denver developmental Screening Test (DDST). Children positive on the DDST screen are then referred for a diagnostic assessment. To devise the PDQ, 97 of 105 standard DDST items were formulated into questions. Ten age-appropriate questions were answered by 1,155 parents with subsequent evaluation of their children with the DDST. Agreement between parental responses for individual items and the score for their children's corresponding DDST item varied from 68% to 100% (mean, 93.3%). When the PDQ was positive, 31.2% of the children were referred for a DDST screen. These referrals included 86.7% of abnormal and 53.8% of questionable DDSTs among the 1,155 children screened. The predictive value of a referral was 23.3%. The predictive value of a referral did not differ significantly whether the PDQ was answered by a parent or by day care center staff personnel. A subsequent field trial of 1,027 PDQs in private physicians' offices and public health clinics yielded a similar predictive value (24.7%) for a referral. The parents liked the PDQ which took them only about five minutes to answer and the physicians liked the PDQ since it decreased by almost 69% the number of DDSTs they felt obliged to administer.