Accuracy of parents' concerns in identifying children with developmental problems

Objective: Parents' appraisals of their children's development are meaningful indicators of true developmental status of a child in the developed countries. However, parents' concerns about their child's development and its relationship to developmental status is unknown in India. The present study aimed at identifying the range of concerns that parents have about their child's development and its relationship to the child's developmental status. Method. Fifty five parent-child dyads with children aged 6 to 60 months seeking well-child outpatient pediatric care in a tertiary care teaching hospital were recruited. Parents' concerns were elicited using the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) questionnaire. The child's developmental status was assessed using the Developmental Profile II. Children were considered as having failed screening if they showed delayed development in any one of the five developmental domains assessed, or borderline functioning in two or more developmental domains. Results. Thirty eight percent of parents expressed no concern and an additional 20% raised nonsignificant developmental concerns about their child's development Out of these 90.6% passed development screening. Of the parents who expressed one or more significant developmental concern about their child, 47.8% of these children failed screening. Forty three percent of the parents whose children failed developmental screening expressed medical concerns, 35.7% expressive language concerns, and 28% global/cognitive concerns, Multiple regression analysis revealed that the only significant predictor variable was socio-economic status and it explained 11% of variance in the total number of significant developmental concerns raised by parents. Conclusion, Since developmental concerns raised by parents are important for early detection of developmental disabilities in children, pediatricians are more likely to fail in detecting children with developmental problems in poor families.