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Examining construct validity of a new naturalistic observational assessment of hand skills for preschool‐ and school‐age children
Author(s) -
Chien ChiWen,
Brown Ted,
McDonald Rachael
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
australian occupational therapy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.595
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1440-1630
pISSN - 0045-0766
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1630.2012.00997.x
Subject(s) - rasch model , construct validity , psychology , construct (python library) , activities of daily living , developmental psychology , autism spectrum disorder , observational study , social skills , psychometrics , clinical psychology , autism , medicine , pathology , psychiatry , computer science , programming language
Background/aim The Assessment of Children's Hand Skills is a new assessment that utilises a naturalistic observational method to capture children's real‐life hand skill performance when engaged at various types of daily activities in everyday living contexts. The Assessment of Children's Hand Skills is designed for use with 2‐ to 12‐year‐old children with a range of disabilities or health conditions. The study aimed to investigate construct validity of the Assessment of Children's Hand Skills in A ustralian children. Methods Rasch analysis was used to examine internal construct validity of the Assessment of Children's Hand Skills in a mixed sample of 53 children with disabilities (including autism spectrum disorder, developmental/genetic disorders and physical disabilities) and 85 typically developing children. External construct validity was examined by correlating with three questionnaires evaluating daily living skills and hand skills. Results Rasch goodness‐of‐fit analysis suggested that all 22 activity items and 19 of 20 hand skill items in the Assessment of Children's Hand Skills measured a single construct. The Assessment of Children's Hand Skills items were placed in a clinically meaningful hierarchy from easy to hard, and the difficulty range of the items also matched the majority of children with disabilities and typically developing preschool‐aged children. Moderate to high correlations (0.59 ≤ Spearman's ρ coefficients ≤ 0.89, P < 0.01) were found with the assessments of daily living and fine motor skills. Conclusion This study provided preliminary evidence supporting the construct validity of the Assessment of Children's Hand Skills for its clinical application in assessing children's real‐life hand skill performance in A ustralian contexts.