Criterion Validation of 'Speech Related Items' in INCLEN NDST-Research Form Against Receptive Expressive Emergent Language Scale-4 Among Children with Complaints of Speech Problems

AbstractDelay in speech and language is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in early childhood with a prevalence rate of around 6% in children Objectives: The primary objective of the study was criterion validation of ‘speech related items’ in INCLEN NDST-research form against receptive expressive emergent language scale-4 among children with complaints of speech problems as gold standard and to calculate sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, diagnostic accuracy, and likelihood ratios. Methodology This descriptive study - diagnostic test evaluation, was carried out from January to August 2022 over a period of 8 months, at NIMS Spectrum-CDRC, Thiruvananthapuram, and a tertiary care centre for children with neurodevelopmental problems. Seventy-five children with complaints of speech problems, coming to NIMS-Spectrum-CDRC, were screened with NDST-research against REELS by an experienced developmental therapist and evaluated with REELS-4 by Developmental nurse counsellor, blind to the results of screening Result On doing criterion validation of Speech related items in NDST-research, the psychometric properties were as follows; sensitivity of 97.96%, specificity of 42.31%, positive predictive value