title: Development and assessment of a screening test for detecting childhood disabilities.
abstract: The paper outlines the development and assessment of a screening test for broad-based identification of major disabilities in children under 6 years of age. The Disability Screening Schedule (DSS) has been developed which should act as a one time screen for all major disabilities viz. physical, motor, sensory and mental retardation. The DSS was developed after reviewing a number of existing screening instruments. It was pilot tested in 3 phases and suitably modified. Nineteen AWW received a short training and used the DSS to screen children with disabilities in their respective areas. It was field tested by administering it on 3560 children (0-6 years) drawn from nine urban slums of South Delhi. The workers used the DSS and identified 245 children as having an impairment/at risk conditions and 3315 children were reported as normal. The investigator cross checked 219 'impaired' and 536 'normal' children. On the basis of the review exercise, the DSS was validated and was found to have a sensitivity of 0.89 and a specificity of 0.98. The DSS is a short questionnaire, and the administration time is about 5 minutes.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Home Economics, University of Delhi.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chopra
authors.forename: I C
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Seetharaman
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003150:Community Health Workers; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007223:Infant; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000175:diagnosis; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011204:Poverty Areas; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D014504:Urban Health