title: Development and validation of Trivandrum Development Screening Chart for children aged 0-6 years [TDSC (0-6)].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop and validate a simple screening tool for identifying developmental delay among children of 0-6 y of age in the community.
  
  
  METHODS
  The 51-items of Trivandrum Development Screening Chart for children of 0-6 y [TDSC (0-6 y)], were carefully prepared from the norms in various existing developmental charts/scales, by experts keeping in mind the face validity and content validity. The criterion validity was assessed in a community sample of 1,183 children of 0-6 y with a mean age of 35.38 mo (SD of 19.25) including 597 (50.46%) boys and 586 (49.54%) girls. TDSC (0-6 y) was validated against Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) as the 'Reference Standard'.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When one item delay in TDSC (0-6 y) was considered as 'TDSC delay' (test positive), the sensitivity and specificity of TDSC (0-6 y) was found to be 84.62% (95% CI: 71.92-93.12) and 90.8% (95% CI: 88.97-92.43) respectively with a Negative Predictive Value of 99.23% (95% CI: 98.48-99.67) and LR (negative) of 0.17(95% CI: 0.09-0.32). The test-retest and inter-rater reliability [an interclass correlation (ICC) of 0.77 for test-retest and ICC of 0.97 for inter-rater] were good and acceptable.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  TDSC (0-6 y) is a simple, reliable and valid screening tool for use in the community to identify children between 0 and 6 y with developmental delay, enabling early intervention practices.
authors.affiliation: Child Development Centre, Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, 695 011, Kerala, South India, cdcmkc@gmail.com.
authors.forename: M K C
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Nair
authors.forename: G S Harikumaran
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Nair
authors.forename: Babu
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: George
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Suma
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Neethu
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Leena
authors.forename: Paul Swamidhas Sudhakar
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Russell
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003153:Community Health Services; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D015588:Observer Variation; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000592:standards; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity