Construct | Age group (years) | Child measure (source) | Additional information* |
Physical health measures | |||
General health | 0–1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–7 | Rated current health from the Child Health Questionnaire30 (P) | Single item. Poor, fair or good=1; very good or excellent=0 |
Special healthcare needs | 0–1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–7 | Screener of Special Health Care Needs31 (P) | Single derived item from 6 component items on child's medical and healthcare needs. Yes=1; No=0 |
Illness with wheeze | 0–1, 2-3, 4–5, 6–7 | Illness with wheezing in the chest, lasting 1 week or more in the last 12 months (P) | Single item. Yes =1; No=0 |
Sleep problems | 0–1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–7 | Two or more sleep problems, four or more nights per week (P) | Difficulty getting to sleep; not happy sleeping alone; waking during the night and restless sleep. Yes to any two=1; No=0 |
Injury | 0–1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–7 | Injury or accident requiring medical attention, in the last 12 months (P) | Single item. Yes=1; No=0 |
Developmental health measures | |||
Socio-emotional competence | 2–3 | Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (BITSEA), Competence Scale32 (P) | Parent report of social functioning: 11 items (3-point scale: ‘not true/rarely’ to ‘very true’). α=0.64 |
4–5, 6–7 | Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Prosocial Scale33 (P) | Parent report on social functioning: 5 items (3-point scale: ‘not true’ to ‘certainly true’). α=0.81 for 4–5y; 0.69 for 6–7 y | |
Socio-emotional difficulties | 2–3 | Short BITSEA, Problems Scale32 (P) | Parent report on emotional problems: 23 items (3-point scale: ‘not true/rarely’ to ‘very true’). α=0.74 |
4–5, 6–7 | SDQ, Total Problems score33 (P) | Parent report on emotional problems: 20 items (3-point scale: ‘not true’ to ‘certainly true’). α=0.84 for 4–5 y, 0.59 for 6–7 y | |
Communication skills | 0–1 | Communication and Symbolic Behaviour Scale (CSBS)34 (P) | Parent report on emergent communication skills: 24 items (3 point scale – ‘not yet’ to often’ or frequency rating on some items). α=0.89. |
2–3 (a) | McArthur-Bates Communication Development Index III (MCDI-III), grammatical markers35 (P) | Parent report on child's usual grammar usage presented through forced choice on 12 presented sentence pairs. α=0.90 | |
2–3 (b) | Communication Skills Scales (CSS)36(P) | Parent report on communication on 6 items (3-point scale: ‘never’ to ‘always’). α=0.74 | |
6–7 | Child Communication Checklist, version 237 (P) | Parent reports on syntax, coherence, semantics and speech; each scale with 7 items (4-point: ‘less than once a week’ to ‘always’). α=0.71 | |
Vocabulary skills | 2–3 | MCDI-III, vocabulary35 (P) | Parent report of child vocabulary use from a list of 98 words |
4–5, 6–7 | Short Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III)38 (DA) | Direct assessment of receptive vocabulary on a short form (40 items) of the PPVT-III | |
Emergent literacy skills | 4–5 | Who Am I?39 (DA) | Direct assessment of emergent literacy skills (writing, copying and symbol recognition). Person separation reliability=0.89 |
6–7 (a) | Teacher Academic Rating Scales (TARS), Mathematical Thinking40 (T) | Teacher rating of mathematical competence: 8 items (5-point scale: ‘not yet’ to ‘proficient’). α=0.95 | |
6–7 (b) | TARS – Language and Literacy40 (T) | Teacher rating of language and literacy competence: 10 items (5-point scale: ‘not yet’ to ‘proficient’). α=0.96 |
↵* For continuous measures, Cronbach's α.
DA, direct assessment; P, parent report; T, teacher report.