Background: The aim of this study was to provide a valid Persian version of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires, in order to compensate the lack of developmental screening tools in Iran.
Methods: Forward and backward translation, face and content validity determination, and cultural and linguistic adaptation of the questionnaires were performed, consecutively. Next, a pilot study was carried out on 100 Iranian parents of 4- to 60-month-old children, recruited by consecutive sampling in Tehran, Iran during the year 2006 to determine the degree of clarity for each item and explore cultural adaptations. In order to determine inter-rater reliability, we had parents of 38 children complete the questionnaires. For determining the psychometric properties of the tests, we later recruited a representative sample of 555, 4- to 6-year-old children by consecutive sampling from health care centers in five main geographical areas in Tehran.
Results: Performing cultural and lingual adaptations, our expert team made some inevitable changes to the questionnaires. Almost in all age groups older than 10 months, cultural or linguistic changes were made in items in the “communication” domain. Overall, the questionnaires’ Cronbach alpha was 0.79. The constructive validity of the tests was also satisfactory. Another important finding was determination of the children’s developmental mean scores.
Conclusion: The culturally adapted Persian copies of the Ages and Stages Questionnai-res have proper validity and reliability for being used as developmental screening tools for children in Tehran.