The Pediatric Outcomes Data Collection Instrument (PODCI) [12], Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) [13], and CHQ [14] have limited usefulness for children and adolescents who use wheeled mobility due to specific wording and inappropriate items, such as ��walking a mile�� or ��standing at a sink.�� The Children’s Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment selleckchem 17-AAG (CAPE) [15] is a relatively new measure of participation for children. Based on our experience, the CAPE has a high response burden and does not contain participation items important to children with SCI such as participation in their own self care and participation in organized school activities.

Clearly, the development of a targeted pediatric SCI measure should have a large set of items to cover the wide set of functional abilities and ages in this population and have content that is specific to some of the unique functional tasks that children and adolescents with SCI encounter. Contemporary measurement approaches such as Item Response Theory (IRT) methods provide a promising means to achieve psychometrically adequate, comprehensive, and precise outcome instruments that are practical for widespread application in clinical and research settings. IRT is a set of statistical models for the analysis of multiple categorical variables that measure the same concept (such as a content domain within a parent or child survey). There is intense worldwide interest in using IRT methods to foster the next generation of practical and precise instruments for monitoring health care outcomes [16�C19], while overcoming the chronic breadth, precision, and practicality challenges of traditional outcome instruments.

A contemporary method of creating new instruments is to develop large item pools and then calibrate them into item banks that can then be used to support the development of computer-adaptive testing (CAT). Computer adaptive testing programs utilize extensive item banks, available for administration, but any one respondent is only provided to the items optimal for their abilities. Each CAT administration is adapted to the unique ability level of each respondent. An adaptive test first asks questions in the middle of the ability range and then directs questions to an appropriate level based on the individual’s responses.

This allows for fewer items to be administered, while gaining precise information regarding an individual’s placement along a continuum of ability or health status. We have recently demonstrated the feasibility of building CAT platforms for a successful clinical trial for children with Lysosomal storage disease [20], for monitoring children enrolled Anacetrapib in inpatient and outpatient physical rehabilitation programs [21], and for evaluating children at the point-of-care in a busy orthopedic spine practice [22].