Developmental screening in context: adaptation and standardization of the Denver Developmental Screening Test-II (DDST-II) for Sri Lankan children.
BACKGROUND
Developmental problems in children can be alleviated to a great extent with early detection and intervention through periodic screening for developmental delays during pre-school ages. Currently, there is no established system for developmental screening of children in Sri Lanka. Although some developmental norms, which are similar to those of Denver Developmental Screening Test-II (DDST-II), have been introduced into the Sri Lankan Child Health Developmental Record (CHDR), those norms have not been standardized to the Sri Lankan child population. The aim of this research was to establish Sri Lankan norms for DDST-II and to test the universal and regional applicability of developmental screening tests by comparing the Sri Lankan norms with the norms of DDST-II and DDST-Singapore norms, the geographically nearest standardization of DDST-II. The norms were also compared with the milestones already available in the CHDR.


METHODS
DDST-II was adapted and standardized on a sample of 4251 Sri Lankan children aged 0-80 months. Thirteen public health nursing sisters were trained to collect the data as part of their routine work. The 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile ages of acquiring each developmental milestone were then calculated using logistic regression.


RESULTS
The Denver Developmental Screening Test for Sri Lankan Children (DDST-SL) was created. Most of the established DDST-SL norms were different to the comparable norms in DDST-II, DDST-Singapore and the CHDR.


CONCLUSIONS
In view of the results of the study, it is imperative that developmental screening tests are used in context and are adapted and standardized to the populations in question before utilization.
School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. dinithi.wijedasa@bristol.ac.uk
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Wijedasa
D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013188:Sri Lanka; D013997:Time Factors