For instance, children may be screened for behavioral difficulties, parents for parenting practices that could place children at risk, or teachers for their own mental health concerns. Screening plays a crucial role in ensuring that comprehensive assessments and interventions are provided only to those who truly need them, making the process both cost-effective and time-efficient.

Early screening for developmental delays

For example, to identify children who may benefit from further developmental evaluation, parents or caregivers can complete the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ), which screen key areas of child development such as communication, motor skills, and social functioning. Children showing potential developmental delays will undergo more comprehensive clincial asessments.

The challenge of long assessments

In clinical research and practice, long questionnaires can be a burden for patients and healthcare providers, leading to the infrequent use of such assessments. The simple solution, often used in practice, is using shorter screening tools. While the use of short screening tools may be useful in situations with limited time, shortening tests may come at the expense of accurate results. The key to efficient screening is finding the right balance between being as accurate as possible (i.e., predictive validity) while also having a time-efficient and quick assessment.

A smarter way to screen

This study presents the potential usefulness of a new Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) method that can lead to short tests that still have high predictive validity. With CAT, the questions being shown to the test taker are selected in real time based on the person’s status. In CAT screening, the number and order of questions each test-taker receives depend on their individual condition or symptom severity. Researchers have identified that this method can be improved using a new approach called latent-class and sum score based Computerized Adaptive Testing. In fact, the study showed that this new method was better suited to identify the right questions to ask and to ensure valid screening results.  

This study is published in the journal Quality of Life Research, illustrating the method on screening depression.