Development of the Dimensional Inventory of Child Development Assessment (IDADI)

Abstract Child development is complex and includes multiple domains, such as cognition, communication and language, motor skills, socialization, and emotional development. The objective of this paper was to present the development process of the Dimensional Inventory of Child Development Assessment (IDADI) and evidence of its content validity. IDADI was conceived to assess child development of children from zero to 72 months of age through parental reports covering Cognitive, Motor (Gross and Fine), Communication and Language (Receptive and Expressive), Socioemotional and Adaptive Behavior domains. The development process involved: description of the theoretical foundation; development of the preliminary version of the instrument; expert item analysis; semantic analysis of the items by the target population; and a pilot study. The initial item pool had 2,365 items and the final version consisted of 524, after exclusions, modifications and additions. The stages of development led to changes in most of the items. This process is considered to have ensured IDADI’s content validity. Thus, it is believed that IDADI will contribute to child development assessment in Brazil in clinical and research contexts.