Development of an elementary school participation checklist for Japanese children requiring special needs education

Purpose: This study aimed to develop an 'elementary school participation checklist' for children with developmental disorders requiring special needs education. Methods: A pilot version was used to survey 539 parents of elementary school students, including children who were suspected of having developmental disabilities. Thereafter, the results were factor-analyzed and a checklist was created. The results of 10 children with developmental disorders who are currently under special needs education were compared. Results: After excluding items with a factor loading of less than 0.5, a refined 15-item version checklist was created. The median total scores for elementary school students and children with developmental disorders were 22 and 33 points, respectively. Conclusion: Cronbach' s alpha coefficients for each of these separate factors were 0.7 and above, confirming construct validity and internal consistency. Further research of criterion-related validity will be necessary to investigate the use of this checklist as a scale.