[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.
Loos-Ayav
C
C
Ecole de santé publique (EA3444), Faculté de Medecine de Nancy, 9, avenue de la Forêt de Haye, BP184 54505 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy Cedex.
Roy
B
B
Blanc
J P
JP
Aptel
E
E
Maeder
C
C
Kipffer-Piquard
A
A
Alla
F
F
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