Parent-Professional Congruence

Considerable attention has been given to the issue of parent-professional congruence, specifically in connection with reliability of assessments. Concerns regarding the trustworthiness of parental assessments have guided research to focus on the conventional issues of interrater reliability and rater interchangeability. However, this conventional perspective may be misdirected and counterproductive. It is argued that the focus should be the reliability of the pooled assessment information from parents and professionals. A more appropriate generalizability theoretic model, which would maximize social, ecological, and construct validity, is proposed. An illustration with data from an early childhood assessment system is provided.

[1]  Donald B. Rubin,et al.  The Dependability of Behavioral Measurements: Theory of Generalizability for Scores and Profiles. , 1974 .

[2]  H. Suen.  Principles of test theories , 1990 .

[3]  R. Sheehan,et al.  Parental and professional agreement in early childhood assessment , 1981 .

[4]  M. Wolf,et al.  Social validity: the case for subjective measurement or how applied behavior analysis is finding its heart. , 1978, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[5]  T. Field,et al.  The mother's assessment of the behavior of her infant , 1978 .

[6]  C. Kennedy.  Trends in the Measurement of Social Validity , 1992, The Behavior analyst.

[7]  Hanan C. Selvin.  The Dependability of Behavioral Measurements: Theory of Generalizability for Scores and Profiles.Lee J. Cronbach , Goldine C. Gleser , Harinder Nanda , Nageswari Rajaratnam , 1974 .

[8]  J. Bloch,et al.  Parents as Assessors of Children: A Collaborative Approach to Helping , 1989 .

[9]  K. Sonnander.  Early Diagnosis by Parental Developmental Screening. , 1988 .

[10]  P. Beckman.  Perceptions of young children with handicaps: a comparison of mothers and program staff. , 1984, Mental retardation.

[11]  D. Bricker.  Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System (AEPS) for Infants and Children. Volume 1: AEPS Measurement for Birth to Three Years , 1994 .

[12]  A. Bell,et al.  Parental vs. Professional Assessment of Developmentally Delayed Children After Periods of Parent Training , 1987 .

[13]  J. Squires,et al.  The validity, reliability, and cost of a parent-completed questionnaire system to evaluate at-risk infants. , 1988, Journal of pediatric psychology.

[14]  L. Meltzer,et al.  Developmental Attainment in Preschool Children: Analysis of Concordance Between Parents and Professionals , 1983 .

[15]  D. Sexton,et al.  Comparison of Maternal Estimates and Performance-Based Assessment Scores for Young Handicapped Children , 1982 .

[16]  R. Simeonsson,et al.  Consistency and Correspondence of Mothers' and Teachers' Assessments of Young Handicapped Children , 1981 .

[17]  Laurie A. Dinnebeil,et al.  Congruence Between Parentsapos; and Professionals' Judgments About the Development of Young Children with Disabilities , 1994 .

[18]  James H. Miller,et al.  Correlates of Parental-Professional Congruency Scores in the Assessment of Young Handicapped Children , 1984 .

[19]  R. Feldman,et al.  Comparison of Parent and Teacher Assessments of Developmentally Delayed Children's Behavior , 1987, Exceptional children.

[20]  H. Suen,et al.  Measurement of Team Decision-Making Through Generalizability Theory , 1993 .

[21]  J. Squires,et al.  Low Cost System Using Parents to Monitor the Development of At-Risk Infants , 1989 .