Reliability of assessing the sensory perception of children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities: a case study.
BACKGROUND
This study describes preliminary stages of developing a checklist to enable practitioners to determine the behavioural responses of children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities to sensory stimuli. Reliability of currently used checklists is low, with a focus on the child's sensory integration instead of perception.


METHODS
The inter-rater reliability of a checklist was determined, and adjustments were made to improve reliability.


RESULTS
Strikingly, the reliability decreased for all components after adjustment. The effect of a smaller item pool was ruled out. The effect of familiarity of teachers as raters was examined.


CONCLUSIONS
Results show that teachers who know a child well could interpret that child's behaviour more accurately than persons who were unfamiliar with the child. However, reliability of the checklist remains a problem.
Vlaskamp
C
C
Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. c.vlaskamp@rug.nl
Cuppen-Fonteine
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H
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011596:Psychomotor Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012677:Sensation / Q000502:physiology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014743:Videotape Recording