[Validation of a screening test of language and learning disorders for 6-year old children (ERTLA6)--a prospective study].
Medical practitioners are, like the other health, education and childhood professionals, important actors of the language and learning disorders' screening. Six years old--the age at which children start the elementary school--is a key age for this screening. At the request of practitioners, a multidisciplinary staff had developed a screening tool: ERTLA6 (Epreuves de repérage des troubles du langage et des apprentissages de l'enfant de 6 ans). The objective was to validate the capacity of ERTLA6 to predict the school performance. A sample of 187 children was randomly constituted among the whole population of last year nursery school children in an area of France (the Académie de Nancy-Metz). Those children, aged from 5 to 6, were screened with ERTLA6 by the school practitioner during a medical visit (score from 0 [the best] to 18 [the worse]). The School outcomes (considered as judgment criteria) were assessed 2 or 3 years later, after two years of elementary school. 148 children had completed their follow-up (the others: 27 moving house, 6 absents the day of evaluation, 2 missing data). Mean age was 5; 10 years. With a threshold > or = 7, ERTLA6 sensibility and specificity were respectively 79% [63-94] and 87% [81-93]; the positive predictive value was 58% [42-74], the negative predictive value was 95% [90-99]. The percentage of well classified children was 84% [69-99]. To our knowledge, ERTLA6 is the first validated tool in France for screening language and learning disorders which can be used by practitioners for the prediction of school outcomes.
Ecole de santé publique (EA3444), Faculté de Medecine de Nancy, 9, avenue de la Forêt de Haye, BP184 54505 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy Cedex.
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D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires