Validation of a home‐based neurodevelopmental screening tool for under 2‐year‐old children in Bangladesh

Abstract

A tool for screening <2-year-old children at risk for NDIs showed high specificity; and was able to identify all children at risk for vision and hearing impairments, nearly three-fourths with speech impairments, two-thirds with gross motor impairments, and about half with behavioural, cognitive and fine motor impairments. The Developmental Screening Questionnaire tool has potential for use by frontline workers to screen large populations and to link to definitive assessment as well as intervention services.

Screening for Neurodevelopmental Impairments among less than 2 Years Old Children in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Dhaka city

“…Handicap, therefore, is not a natural, but a social fact. The Rapid Neurodevelopment Assessment Instrument (RNDA) for Bangladesh children less than two years of age reported by Khan et al 7 basically provides an instrument to further evaluate in detail previously screened youngsters who have been thought to be at possible risk for developmental delays and handicaps. Bangladesh has been classified as one of the least developed countries by the United Nations and has very limited resources to spend on social services.…”

“…Most of the questions were adapted from a validated neurodevelopmental assessment tool like the Rapid Neurodevelopmental Assessment (RNDA), which was developed for direct administration by trained professionals for under 2-year-old children9. DSQ is developed at Shishu Bikash Kendro of Dhaka Shishu Hospital and its validity test has been done in the community 7 . In stage II neurodevelopmental assessment was done using a validated Rapid Neurodevelopmental Assessment (RNDA) method of evaluations of all children with positive screening results.…”

“…Therefore large unrecognized populations of children in low-income countries are at risk for neurodevelopmental impairments (NDIs) from an early age. In Bangladesh there is the rise in prevalence of children who are at risk for disabilities from 8% in 1988 to 20% in 2005 7 . The Development Screening Questionnaire (DSQ) is a validated screening tool for identification of at risk for NDIs of 0-2 years old children 8 .…”

Moving beyond prevalence studies: screening and interventions for children with disabilities in low-income and middle-income countries

“…Often tools are not adequately adapted or validated for a local population 50–53. A small number of developmental tools have been created or adapted specifically for developing country settings,54 55 some with good measures of validity and reliability.…”

Child disability services in Bangladesh

“…The team in Bangladesh has continued survey work with the Ten Questions screen, improving on it with additions, the Ten Questions Plus 5 and downward extension to children aged 0 to 2 years. 6 Furthermore, they have developed rapid neurodevelopmental assessment procedures which can be delivered by trained and experienced college graduates across childhood. 7,8 This then allows not only early detection of developmental problems but also accurate referral to the expert teams.…”