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The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings

INTRODUCTION: Early childhood development can be described by an underlying latent construct. Global comparisons of children’s development are hindered by the lack of a validated metric that is comparable across cultures and contexts, especially for children under age 3 years. We constructed and val...

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Autores principales: Weber, Ann M, Rubio-Codina, Marta, Walker, Susan P, van Buuren, Stef, Eekhout, Iris, Grantham-McGregor, Sally M, Araujo, Maria Caridad, Chang, Susan M, Fernald, Lia CH, Hamadani, Jena Derakhshani, Hanlon, Charlotte, Karam, Simone M, Lozoff, Betsy, Ratsifandrihamanana, Lisy, Richter, Linda, Black, Maureen M
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6882553/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31803508
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001724
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author Weber, Ann M
Rubio-Codina, Marta
Walker, Susan P
van Buuren, Stef
Eekhout, Iris
Grantham-McGregor, Sally M
Araujo, Maria Caridad
Chang, Susan M
Fernald, Lia CH
Hamadani, Jena Derakhshani
Hanlon, Charlotte
Karam, Simone M
Lozoff, Betsy
Ratsifandrihamanana, Lisy
Richter, Linda
Black, Maureen M
author_facet Weber, Ann M
Rubio-Codina, Marta
Walker, Susan P
van Buuren, Stef
Eekhout, Iris
Grantham-McGregor, Sally M
Araujo, Maria Caridad
Chang, Susan M
Fernald, Lia CH
Hamadani, Jena Derakhshani
Hanlon, Charlotte
Karam, Simone M
Lozoff, Betsy
Ratsifandrihamanana, Lisy
Richter, Linda
Black, Maureen M
author_sort Weber, Ann M
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Early childhood development can be described by an underlying latent construct. Global comparisons of children’s development are hindered by the lack of a validated metric that is comparable across cultures and contexts, especially for children under age 3 years. We constructed and validated a new metric, the Developmental Score (D-score), using existing data from 16 longitudinal studies. METHODS: Studies had item-level developmental assessment data for children 0–48 months and longitudinal outcomes at ages >4–18 years, including measures of IQ and receptive vocabulary. Existing data from 11 low-income, middle-income and high-income countries were merged for >36 000 children. Item mapping produced 95 ‘equate groups’ of same-skill items across 12 different assessment instruments. A statistical model was built using the Rasch model with item difficulties constrained to be equal in a subset of equate groups, linking instruments to a common scale, the D-score, a continuous metric with interval-scale properties. D-score-for-age z-scores (DAZ) were evaluated for discriminant, concurrent and predictive validity to outcomes in middle childhood to adolescence. RESULTS: Concurrent validity of DAZ with original instruments was strong (average r=0.71), with few exceptions. In approximately 70% of data rounds collected across studies, DAZ discriminated between children above/below cut-points for low birth weight (<2500 g) and stunting (−2 SD below median height-for-age). DAZ increased significantly with maternal education in 55% of data rounds. Predictive correlations of DAZ with outcomes obtained 2–16 years later were generally between 0.20 and 0.40. Correlations equalled or exceeded those obtained with original instruments despite using an average of 55% fewer items to estimate the D-score. CONCLUSION: The D-score metric enables quantitative comparisons of early childhood development across ages and sets the stage for creating simple, low-cost, global-use instruments to facilitate valid cross-national comparisons of early childhood development.
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spelling pubmed-68825532019-12-04 The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings Weber, Ann M Rubio-Codina, Marta Walker, Susan P van Buuren, Stef Eekhout, Iris Grantham-McGregor, Sally M Araujo, Maria Caridad Chang, Susan M Fernald, Lia CH Hamadani, Jena Derakhshani Hanlon, Charlotte Karam, Simone M Lozoff, Betsy Ratsifandrihamanana, Lisy Richter, Linda Black, Maureen M BMJ Glob Health Research INTRODUCTION: Early childhood development can be described by an underlying latent construct. Global comparisons of children’s development are hindered by the lack of a validated metric that is comparable across cultures and contexts, especially for children under age 3 years. We constructed and validated a new metric, the Developmental Score (D-score), using existing data from 16 longitudinal studies. METHODS: Studies had item-level developmental assessment data for children 0–48 months and longitudinal outcomes at ages >4–18 years, including measures of IQ and receptive vocabulary. Existing data from 11 low-income, middle-income and high-income countries were merged for >36 000 children. Item mapping produced 95 ‘equate groups’ of same-skill items across 12 different assessment instruments. A statistical model was built using the Rasch model with item difficulties constrained to be equal in a subset of equate groups, linking instruments to a common scale, the D-score, a continuous metric with interval-scale properties. D-score-for-age z-scores (DAZ) were evaluated for discriminant, concurrent and predictive validity to outcomes in middle childhood to adolescence. RESULTS: Concurrent validity of DAZ with original instruments was strong (average r=0.71), with few exceptions. In approximately 70% of data rounds collected across studies, DAZ discriminated between children above/below cut-points for low birth weight (<2500 g) and stunting (−2 SD below median height-for-age). DAZ increased significantly with maternal education in 55% of data rounds. Predictive correlations of DAZ with outcomes obtained 2–16 years later were generally between 0.20 and 0.40. Correlations equalled or exceeded those obtained with original instruments despite using an average of 55% fewer items to estimate the D-score. CONCLUSION: The D-score metric enables quantitative comparisons of early childhood development across ages and sets the stage for creating simple, low-cost, global-use instruments to facilitate valid cross-national comparisons of early childhood development. BMJ Publishing Group 2019-11-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6882553/ /pubmed/31803508 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001724 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Research
Weber, Ann M
Rubio-Codina, Marta
Walker, Susan P
van Buuren, Stef
Eekhout, Iris
Grantham-McGregor, Sally M
Araujo, Maria Caridad
Chang, Susan M
Fernald, Lia CH
Hamadani, Jena Derakhshani
Hanlon, Charlotte
Karam, Simone M
Lozoff, Betsy
Ratsifandrihamanana, Lisy
Richter, Linda
Black, Maureen M
The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings
title The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings
title_full The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings
title_fullStr The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings
title_full_unstemmed The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings
title_short The D-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings
title_sort d-score: a metric for interpreting the early development of infants and toddlers across global settings
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6882553/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31803508
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001724
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