ABSTRACT
Background: Identifying young children at risk for socio-emotional developmental problems at an early stage, to prevent serious problems later in life, is crucial. Therefore, we need high quality measures to identify those children at risk for social-emotional problems who require further evaluation and intervention. Objective: To systematically identify parent report measures of infant and toddler (0-24 months) social-emotional development for use in primary care settings. Methods: We conducted a systematic review applying a narrative synthesis approach. We searched Medline, PsychInfo, Embase and SocIndex for articles published from 2008 through September 2015 to identify parent-report measures of infant and toddler social-emotional development. Data on the characteristics of the measures, including psychometric data, were collected. Results: Based on 3310 screened articles, we located 242 measures that were screened for eligibility. In all 18 measures of infant and toddler social-emotional development were included. Ten of the measures were developed specifically for measuring social-emotional development, and eight were measures including subscales of social-emotional development. The measures varied with respect to, e.g. the time of publication, number of items, age span, cost and amount of psychometric data available. Conclusions: Several measures of infant and toddler social-emotional development have been developed within the last decade. The majority of psychometric data are available through manuals, not peer-reviewed journals. Although all measures show acceptable reliability, the most comprehensive and psychometrically sound measures are the Ages and Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional-2, Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment, Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment and Child Behaviour Checklist 1½-5.
