The Infant Behaviour Questionnaire (IBQ).

The IBQ is a 91-item parental report of infant temperament (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003). Scores encompass a rating of the frequency with which parents report that their infant has behaved a certain way over the past week on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always). In our study, we are using a small subset of 13 items from two subscales; specifically, items in our study come from the distress to limitations scale and the fear scale of the IBQ.

The IBQ has high internal consistency (α ranges from .70 to .90 on the specific subscales of the IBQ) and has demonstrated convergent validity, as indicated by high correlations with other measures of infant temperament (Parade & Leerkes, 2008). Thus, the IBQ is a well validated tool for assessing infant temperament (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003; Parade & Leerkes, 2008).

References

Gartstein, M. A., & Rothbart, M. K. (2003). Studying infant temperament via the revised Infant Behavior Questionnaire. Infant Behavior and Development, 26(1), 64–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-6383(03)00036-4

Parade, S. H., & Leerkes, E. M. (2008). The reliability and validity of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. Infant Behavior and Development, 31(4), 637–646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2008.07.009

Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire Short Form – 107 (ECBQ-107).

The ECBQ-107 assesses temperament in toddlers from ages one to three (Putnam, Garstein & Rothbart, 2006). Two subscales from the short version of the ECBQ (Putnam, Jacobs, Gartstein, & Rothbart, 2010) that load onto the factors fear (8 items) and frustration (6 items), were employed to assess temperament. Parents reported the frequency of their child’s fear and frustration over the past two weeks on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always). Scores were calculated as mean scores for all items applicable to the child. Examples of ECBQ questions in the fear and frustration subscales used in the study include “During every day activities, how often did your child seem frightened for no apparent reason?” and “When told that it was time for bed or a nap, how often did your child get irritable?” respectively. The ECBQ-107 shows high internal consistency for fear and frustration (α = .73 for each) and concurrent validity with the standard ECBQ (r= .73 and .75 respectively) (Putnam et al., 2010).

References

Putnam, S. P., Gartstein, M. A., & Rothbart, M. K. (2006). Measurement of fine-grained aspects of toddler temperament: The early childhood behavior questionnaire. Infant Behavior and Development, 29(3), 386–401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2006.01.004

Putnam, S. P., Jacobs, J., Gartstein, M. A., & Rothbart, M. K. (2010, March). Development and assessment of short and very short forms of the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire. Poster session presented at the International Society on Infant Studies Conference, Baltimore, MD.

Child Behavior Questionnaire – Short Form (CBQ Short Form).

CBQ is a parent-report questionnaire that measures temperament in young children (Rothbart, Ahadi, Hersey & Fisher, 2001). The CBQ Short Form contains 94 items across 15 subscales (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Parents are asked to rate their observations of their children in the past six months on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“extremely untrue of your child”) to 7 (“extremely true of your child”), they are also provided a “not applicable” response for situations they have not observed their child in. Scores are computed as mean scores for each subscale, not applicable items are not factored into mean calculations (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006).

The CCM study used the Anger/Frustration and Fear subscales of the CBQ Short Form, containing six items each. Examples of items from both scales respectively include, “Gets angry when s/he can’t find something s/he wants to play with” and “Is afraid of loud noises.”

The subscales presented adequate internal consistency (α = .69 – .78 & α = .54 – .60 respectively; Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Both subscales showed high correlations with the standard form CBQ (r = .75 & .69 respectively; Putnam & Rothbart 2006) and were found to be valid and reliable measures of temperament in pre-school years (de la Osa, Granero, Penelo, Domènech, & Ezpeleta, 2013).

References

de la Osa, N., Granero, R., Penelo, E., Domènech, J. M., & Ezpeleta, L. (2013). The short and very short forms of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire in a community sample of preschoolers. Assessment, 21(4), 463–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191113508809

Rothbart, M. K., Ahadi, S. A., Hersey, K. L., & Fisher, P. (2001). Investigations of temperament at three to seven years: The children’s behavior questionnaire. Child Development, 72(5), 1394-1408. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00355

Putnam, S. P., & Rothbart, M. K. (2006). Development of short and very short forms of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire. Journal of Personality Assessment, 87(1), 102–112. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa8701_09

Early Development Instrument (EDI).

The EDI is a measurement tool that assesses school readiness of children through five domains that measure different aspects of child development (Janus & Offord, 2007). This study utilized the language and cognitive skills, communication; and special skills domains of the EDI.

The language and cognitive skills domain consists of 26 items that measure mastery of the basics of reading and writing, interest in books, and numerical skills. Answers in this domain are scored on a 2- point scale: “yes” (10) if a child possesses a skill and “no” (0) if she/he does not, e.g. ‘is able to attach sounds to letters,’ and ‘is interested in games involving numbers.’ The score is calculated as a mean score of all the valid answers within the domain.

The communication skills and general knowledge domain uses 7 items to measure the child’s ability to communicate his/her own needs and thoughts in an effective way: e.g. “How would you rate this child’s ability to communicate own needs in an understandable way?” Answers in this domain are scored on a 3-point scale “Very good/good,” “Average” and “Very poor/poor.”

The special skills domain lists 7 items that describe general areas in which young children could demonstrate special skills, e.g. “demonstrates special skills or talents in music”, “demonstrates special skills or talents in athletics/dance.” Responses are recorded and scored on a 2-point scale “yes” (1) and “no” (0) and are summed up to generate a total score indicating the number of special skills they demonstrate. Higher scores in each domain are indicative of greater school readiness.

Studies have found that the EDI has very good between-group reliability (Janus & Offord, 2007; Muhajarine, Puchala & Janus, 2011; Sam, 2011), internal consistency (Curtin, Madden & Perry, 2013) and cross-cultural, convergent, and predictive validity (Brinkman et al., 2016; Brinkman et al., 2013; Brinkman et al., 2007; Duku, Janus & Brinkman, 2015; Hymel, LeMare and McKee, 2011)

References

Brinkman, S. A., Silburn, S., Lawrence, D., Goldfeld, S., Sayers, M., & Oberklaid, F. (2007). Investigating the validity of the Australian Early Development Index. Early Education and Development, 18(3), 427–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409280701610812

Brinkman, S., Gregory, T., Harris, J., Hart, B., Blackmore, S., & Janus, M. (2013). Associations between the Early Development Instrument at age 5, and reading and numeracy skills at ages 8, 10, and 12: A prospective linked data study. Child Indicators Research, 6(4), 695–708. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-013-9189-3

Brinkman, S., Kinnell, A., Maika, A., Hasan, A., Jung, H., & Pradhan, M. (2016). Validity and reliability of the Early Development Instrument in Indonesia. Child Indicators Research, 10(2), 331–352. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-016-9372-4

Curtin, M., Madden, J., Staines, A., & Perry, I. (2013). Determinants of vulnerability in early childhood development in Ireland: A cross-sectional study. BMJ Open, 3(5), e002387. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2012-002387

Duku, E., Janus, M., & Brinkman, S. (2015). Investigation of the cross-national equivalence of a measurement of early child development. Child Indicators Research, 8(2), 471–489. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-014-9249-3

Hymel, S., LeMare, L., & McKee, W. (2011). The Early Development Instrument: An examination of convergent and discriminant validity. Social Indicators Research, 103(2), 267–282. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9845-2

Janus, M., & Offord, D. R. (2007). Development and psychometric properties of the Early Development Instrument (EDI): A measure of children’s school readiness. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 39(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/cjbs2007001

Muhajarine, N., Puchala, C., & Janus, M. (2011). Does the EDI equivalently measure facets of school readiness for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children? Social Indicators Research, 103(2), 299–314. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9847-0

Sam, M. A. (2011). An Indigenous knowledges perspective on valid meaning making: A commentary on research with the EDI and Aboriginal communities. Social  Indicators Research, 103(2), 315–325. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9848-z

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (2-4 years)

The SDQ is a standardized 25-item instrument used to screen for psychopathology in children aged 4 – 17 (Goodman, 1997). A slightly modified version is used for preschool children aged 2-4 (Youth in Mind). Parents rate items on a 3-point Likert scale as either 0 (not true), 1 (somewhat true) or 2 (certainly true). Examples of items on the SDQ include “Many worries or often seems worried” and “Can stop and think things out before acting.” The SDQ consists of 4 difficulties subscales measuring conduct problems, hyperactivity, emotional problems and peer problems, and one prosocial subscale. Each subscale contains 5 items, with scores ranging from 0 to 10 for each scale. Total difficulties score can be calculated by summing the scores from the first four subscales, with higher scores indicating greater risk for psychopathology (range 0–40) (Croft, Stride, Maughan & Rowe, 2015). The preschool version of the SDQ demonstrates satisfactory internal consistency (α > 0.70) for all subscales except peer problems (D’Souza et al., 2016). The SDQ demonstrates high discriminant validity across all subscales and there is some evidence for predictive validity (Croft et al., 2015).

References

Croft, S., Stride, C., Maughan, B., & Rowe, R. (2015). Validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in preschool-aged children. Pediatrics, 135(5), e1210–e1219. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-2920

D’Souza, S., Waldie, K., Peterson, E., Underwood, L., & Morton, S. (2016). Psychometric properties and normative data for the Preschool Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in two-year-old children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 45(2), 345–357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0176-2

Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38(5), 581–586. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01545.x

Youth in Mind. (2014). SDQ: Information for researchers and professionals about the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Retrieved from http://www.sdqinfo.com/

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (4-10 years)

The SDQ is a standardized 25-item instrument used to screen for psychopathology in children aged 4 – 10 (Goodman, 1997). Parents rate items on a 3-point Likert scale as either 0 (not true), 1 (somewhat true) or 2 (certainly true). Examples of items on the SDQ include “Many worries or often seems worried” and “Can stop and think things out before acting.” The SDQ consists of 4 difficulties subscales measuring conduct problems, hyperactivity, emotional problems and peer problems, and one prosocial subscale. Each subscale contains 5 items, with scores ranging from 0 to 10 for each scale. Total difficulties score can be calculated by summing the scores from the first four subscales, with higher scores indicating greater risk for psychopathy (range 0–40) (Croft, Stride, Maughan & Rowe, 2015).

The SDQ demonstrates satisfactory internal consistency (α > 0.70) for all subscales except peer problems (Croft et al., 2015). The SDQ demonstrates high discriminant validity across all subscales and there is some evidence for predictive validity (Croft et al., 2015).

References

Croft, S., Stride, C., Maughan, B., & Rowe, R. (2015). Validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in preschool-aged children. Pediatrics, 135(5), e1210–e1219. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-2920

Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38(5), 581–586. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01545.x

The MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) – III.

The CDI-III is a widely used parental report of infants’ communicative skills (Fenson et al., 2000). Parents are given a list of 100 words and they are asked to indicate whether their child says each word. Words that the infant says are added to generate a vocabulary production score. Examples of words in the CDI-III include ‘wagon,’ ‘ladder,’ and ‘peculiar.’ Although the original CDI assessments ask parents to indicate whether or not their infant understands or understands and says a given word in English—we ask parents to also indicate if their infant understands or understands and says the word in another language. This additional assessment of words in other languages was included in our survey because of the multicultural and multilingual nature of the population from which our sample originates.

The CDI has exceptionally high internal consistency (α = .96) and test-retest reliability, (r = .95; Fenson et al., 1994). The CDI also has demonstrated convergent validity, as indicated by high correlations with other vocabulary assessments such as the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT)—with a correlation value of .73 (Rescorla, Ratner, Jusczyk, & Jusczyk, 2005). Thus, the CDI vocabulary assessments are well-validated tools for assessing vocabulary comprehension and production in infants and young children (Fenson et al., 1994; Rescorla et al., 2005).

References

Fenson, L., Pethick, S., Renda, C., Cox, J. L., Dale, P. S., & Reznick, J. S. (2000). Short-form versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. Applied   Psycholinguistics, 21(1), 95–116. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400001053

Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Bates, E., Thal, D. J., & Pethick, S. J. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(5), 1–185. https://doi.org/10.2307/1166093

Rescorla, L. A., Ratner, N. B., Jusczyk, P., & Jusczyk, A. M. (2005). Concurrent validity of the Language Development Survey: Associations with the MacArthur—Bates Communicative Development Inventories. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 14(2), 156–163. https://doi.org/10.1044/1058-0360(2005/016)

Short-Form MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories Level I (CDI-I).

The CDI-I assesses vocabulary comprehension and production in infants between 8 and 18 months of age (Fenson, Pethick, Renda, Cox, Dale & Reznick, 2000). The experimenter reads out a list of 89 words and for each word, parents are asked to indicate if their child understands the word by responding “Understands” or if their child understands and produces the word by responding “Understands and Says” for each word (Fenson et al., 2000). Examples of words on the CDI-I include “choo choo,” “cookie” and “broken.”

In this study we also collected information for understanding and production in another language and unique words understood across both languages. Scores are converted to percentiles based on age and gender (Fenson et al., 2000). The CDI-I has high internal consistency (α = .97) and demonstrates concurrent validity with the long-form CDI-I (r ranging from 0.88 to 0.90; Fenson et al., 2000).

References

Fenson, L., Pethick, S., Renda, C., Cox, J. L., Dale, P. S., & Reznick, J. S. (2000). Short-form versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21(1), 95-115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400001053

Short-Form MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories Level II (CDI-II) Form A.

The CDI-II assesses vocabulary production in toddlers between 16 and 30 months of age (Fenson, Pethick, Renda, Cox, Dale & Reznick, 2000). The experimenter reads out a list of 100 words and parents are asked to judge if their child says each word or a different word with the same meaning (Fenson et al., 2000). Examples of words on the CDI-II Form A include “meow,” “bench” and “pretend.” Ability to combine words is also assessed with a question that asks parents to rate if their child has begun to combine words by selecting from the options “Not yet,” “Sometimes” or “Often.”

In this study we also asked participants to indicate if the child says the equivalent of each word in another language. Scores are converted to percentiles based on age and gender (Fenson et al., 2000). The CDI-II has high internal consistency (α = .99) and demonstrates concurrent validity with the long-form CDI-II (r=0.74) (Fenson et al., 2000).

References

Fenson, L., Pethick, S., Renda, C., Cox, J. L., Dale, P. S., & Reznick, J. S. (2000). Short-form versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. Applied   Psycholinguistics, 21(1), 95-115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400001053

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Fourth Edition (PPVT-IV).

The PPVT-IV is an untimed test of receptive vocabulary for children aged 2 years or older, consisting of 228 items arranged in order of increasing difficulty (Dunn & Dunn, 2007). The experimenter pronounces a word and participants select from an array of four pictures the one that best describes the word, the test is terminated when the participant provides 8 incorrect responses out of a set of 12 (Kasari et al., 2014). The test provides a standardized score of receptive vocabulary based on a normed sample with a mean standard score of 100 and a standard deviation (SD) of 15 (Spaulding, Hosmer & Schechtman, 2013).

The PPVT-IV has been found to show good internal consistency, test–retest reliability and concurrent validity (Besha, Spencer & Bieliauskas, 2017). Evidence for reliability of PPVT–IV scores included a mean alpha coefficient of .97 and a mean test–retest reliability coefficient of .92 (Nelson & Canivez, 2012)

References

Besha, X. S., Spencer, R. J., & Bieliauskas, L. A. (2017). PPVT-I administration rules significantly shorten PPVT-III/IV administration. International Journal of Neuroscience, 127(5), 412–416. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207454.2016.1186026

Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, D. M. (2007). The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Fourth Edition. Bloomington, MN: NCS. Pearson.

Kasari, C., Kaiser, A., Goods, K., Nietfeld, J., Mathy, P., Landa, R., … Almirall, D. (2014). Communication interventions for minimally verbal children with autism: A sequential multiple assignment randomized trial. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 53(6), 635–646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2014.01.019

Nelson, J. M., & Canivez, G. L. (2012). Examination of the structural, convergent, and incremental validity of the reynolds intellectual assessment scales (RIAS) with a clinical sample. Psychological Assessment, 24(1), 129-140. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024878

Spaulding, T. J., Hosmer, S., & Schechtman, C. (2013). Investigating the interchangeability and diagnostic utility of the PPVT-III and PPVT-IV for children with and without SLI. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 15(5), 453-462. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2012.762042

Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement (WJ IV ACH).

The WJ IV ACH is a standard battery of 11 tests that measure reading, mathematics, written language and academic knowledge (Schrank, Mather & McGrew, 2014). Participants were given the following tests from the WJ IV ACH: Letter-Word Identification, Applied Problems and Passage Comprehension. The Letter-Word Identification test measures broad and basic reading skills; the Passage Comprehension test measures broad reading skills and reading comprehension; and the Applied Problems test measures broad mathematics and the mathematical skills of problem solving and computation (Cormier et al., 2017; Villarreal, 2015).

Experimenters administered each test using an easel Test Book with instructions facing the examiner and stimuli facing the examinee. The examiner followed the exact instructions provided in the testing book and scored participant responses on a Test Record Booklet. Scoring and instructions vary with each question. Built-in scoring tables are provided for each test, providing age and grade equivalency scores that reflect the child’s performance compared to a norming sample (Villarreal, 2015).

The internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities for WJ IV ACH are in the excellent range (α=.84 – .94, α= .83 – .95; Villarreal, 2015). WJ IV ACH presents adequate content validity (McGrew, LaForte, & Schrank, 2014), good construct validity (Villareal, 2015) and excellent concurrent validity with the Kauffman Test of Education Achievement – Second Edition (KTEA-II; Kaufman & Kaufman, 2004) and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test–Third Edition (WIAT-III; Villarreal, 2015; McGrew, LaForte, & Schrank, 2014; Wechsler, 2009).

References

Cormier, D. C., McGrew, K. S., Bulut, O., & Funamoto, A. (2017). Revisiting the relations between the WJ-IV measures of Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) cognitive abilities and reading achievement during the school-age years. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 35(8), 731–754. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282916659208

Kaufman, A. S., & Kaufman, N. L. (2004). Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (2nd ed.). San Antonio, TX: Pearson.

McGrew, K. S., LaForte, E. M., & Schrank, F. A. (2014). Technical manual. Woodcock- Johnson IV. Rolling Meadows, IL: Riverside.

Schrank, F. A., Mather, N., & McGrew, K. S. (2014). Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement. Rolling Meadows, IL: Riverside.

Villarreal, V. (2015). Test review: Schrank, F. A., Mather, N., & McGrew, K. S. (2014).

Woodcock-Johnson IV tests of achievement. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment,   33(4), 391-398. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282915569447

Wechsler, D. (2009). Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (3rd ed.). San Antonio, TX: Pearson