The development and testing of a module on child functioning for identifying children with disabilities on surveys. III: Field testing

Abstract

The CFM addresses a full range of functional domains that are important for child development. The module represents an improvement on the TQSI in that it allows for scaled responses to determine the degree of difficulty, and so can separate out many potential false positives. The module is also preferred over the WG-SS for collecting data on children, first, because most of the questions in the WG-SS are not suitable for children under the age of 5 years, and second, because the WG-SS leaves out important functional domains for children aged 5-17 years, namely those related to developmental disabilities and behavioural issues.

Estimated prevalence of disability and developmental delay among preschool children in rural Malawi: Findings from “Tikule Limodzi,” a cross‐sectional survey

“…We also found a high correlation between delay in language and social development and disability: children with disabilities were 4.8 times more likely to have a developmental delay than children without disabilities. Similar conclusions were made during the validation of the CFM (Cappa et al, ).…”

“…The Washington Group/UNICEF Child Functioning Module (CFM) was used to measure functional difficulty in this study (Cappa et al, ; Loeb, Cappa, Crialesi, & de Palma, ). The CFM assesses functional difficulties in children across a number of domains including vision, hearing, mobility, communication/comprehension, learning, emotions, and playing to identify children who are at greater risk than other children of experiencing limited participation in an unaccommodating environment.…”

Intra-Rater Test-Retest Reliability of a Modified Child Functioning Module, Self-Report Version

“…The use of the CFM for self-reported disabilities is, overall, an acceptable measure. This is an important finding because previous work on these items has been based on proxy reporting [ 13 , 35 ] and there is a need to include self-reported disabilities in national health surveys [ 5 ]. Young adolescence is an important time for reflecting on personal growth and these changes must be monitored [ 19 ].…”

“…The self-reported version of the CFM was designed to have the same response options as the proxy report version [ 13 ]. In 8 of the 11 items, the 4 response categories were answered with substantial or moderate agreement.…”

“…To address these previously reported issues, items based on The World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) are used as indicators for disabilities [ 9 , 10 ]. Core functions that influence children’s development, based on the Washington Group on Disability Statistics short set [ 11 ], have been created with the assistance of United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) [ 12 ], to present the Child Functioning Module (CFM) [ 13 ]. Additional functions that are crucial in the development of children under the age of 18 years that are distinctly different from adulthood, include psychosocial development items in learning, behavioral control as well as social interactions that were added in the CFM [ 14 ].…”