Concurrent Validity of the Bayley Screening and the Bayley-III in Persian-Speaking Children.

Objectives: This study aims to determine the concurrent validity of the Bayley-III and the Bayley screening in Persian-speaking children. Measuring child development with the Bayley-III can be time-consuming and expensive. Accordingly, this research seeks to assess the accuracy of the Bayley screening as a measure of developmental delay for high-risk infants by age group.

Materials & methods: Concurrent validity between raw Bayley screening scores and Bayley-III scores was assessed by administering to 403 1-42 month-old children. The cut score of 1.0 standard deviation below the mean of two tests was calculated using the Bayley-III as the criterion measure. This study used 70% of the sensitivity and specificity cut scores to measure validity. In addition, the study calculated the Pearson and Cohen's kappa correlation for the association between the two measures.

Results: The sensitivity of cognitive, receptive, and expressive communication, fine, and gross motor scales of Bayley screening were 70.7, 81.4, 67.7, 60.7, and 58.1, respectively. Specificity values varied narrower, from 87.8% to 100%. The Cohen's kappa coefficient in all age groups was substantial. The Pearson correlation between two test scores is significant for all scales, although the coefficients are over 0.884. The sensitivity and specificity have no specific trends with children's age, and the best sensitivity concurrence on the two tests was in the 1-12 months old age range.

Conclusion: The study supports the concurrent validity of the Bayley screening, showing an assertive and significant association between Bayley screening and Bayley-III in Persian-speaking children.