Authors:
Georgia DeGangi, Susan Poisson, Ruth Sickel, and Andrea Santman Wiener

Publisher:
Therapy Skill Builders, a division of the Psychological Corporation
800-872-1726

Initial Material Cost:
Complete set (Includes manual, 6 sets of 5 score sheets in 25 page pads and vinyl storage portfolio) $63

Representativeness of Norming Sample: No norming sample.

Languages:
English

Type of Assessment:
Parent report or interview

Age Range and Administration Interval:
7-30 months old

Personnel, Training, Administration, and Scoring Requirements:
Administration time is 10 minutes, and it can be administered by the parent or by a paraprofessional. Special training is not required for administering the instrument; however, an understanding of the domains is critical for an accurate interpretation of findings. Scoring can be done in less than 10 minutes.

Summary
Initial Material Cost: 1 (> $100)
Reliability: 1 (none described)
Validity: 2 (less than .5 for concurrent)
Norming Sample Characteristics: 1 (none described)
Ease of Administration and Scoring: 2 (self-administered or administered and scored by someone with basic clerical skills)

Description: The Infant/Toddler Symptom Checklist (ITSC) is designed to screen 7 to 30-month-old infants and toddlers for sensory and regulatory disorders who are behaviorally problematic and show disturbances in sleep, feeding, state control, self-calming, and mood regulation. The checklist focuses on infant behavior in the following domains: (1) self-regulation, (2) attention, (3) sleep, (4) eating or feeding, (5) dressing, bathing, and touch, (6) movement, (7) listening and language, (8) looking and sight, and (9) attachment/emotional functioning. Questions are answered with a “never or sometimes,” “most times,” or “past.” The criterion-referenced ITSC checklist comes in six versions: a single short version for general screening purposes and five age-specific screens for both diagnostic and screening purposes: 7 to 9 months, 10 to 12 months, 13 to 18 months, 19 to 24 months, and 25 to 30 months. The authors recommend using other observation tools when using ITSC as a screening tool and traditional developmental tests when using it as a diagnostic tool.

Uses of Information: The ITSC is used to determine whether a child may have a predisposition toward developing sensory integrative disorders, attention deficits, or emotional, behavioral, or learning difficulties, and whether further diagnosis is required.

Reliability: None described.

Validity: The research sample consisted of 154 normal and 67 regulatory-disordered infants between 7 and 30 months who were primarily white and middle class. (1) Concurrent validity: Statistical tests were performed on correlations between scores on the ITSC and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Mental Scale; the Test of Sensory Functions in Infants (TSFI); and the Test of Attention in Infants (TAI) for a sample of normal infants and a sample of regulatory disorder infants. The results showed that correlations were statistically significant for the regulatory disorder infants and only a few of the correlations with the TSF and TIA subtests were significant for the normal infants, especially among the 7- to 9-month-olds. The authors concluded that the ITSC provided information that is distinct from that obtained by diagnostic measures, particularly for 10- to 30-month olds. The authors tested for construct validity to select the instrument items by performing t-tests on the difference between means obtained from a sample of regulatory disorder infants and a sample of normal infants. They also performed another test by comparing the scores of parents who did not express concern over their infant’s development with those of parents who did express concern and found that only one (out of 25) of the scores in the no concern group was above the at-risk cutoff score while all but two (out of 14) in the concern group had scores about the cutoff. The authors then performed diagnostic tests on infants in the concern group using the TSFI and the TIA and concluded that all 14 suffered from regulatory disorders. (2) Predictive validity: In a separate publication, the authors reported that 78 percent of infants identified by the ITSC as having problems were diagnosed with developmental or behavioral problems at 3 years of age using standardized measures such as the Child Behavior Checklist.

Method of Scoring: The item responses are scored in the following manner: 0 points for “never or sometimes,” 1 point for “past,” and 2 points for “most times” (a self-calming item is the only item that is scored differently due to different response categories). The points are then summed for the entire checklist. The total score is then compared to a normal score range for the appropriate age group. A protocol sheet is available to assist in the scoring of the instrument.

Interpretability: The total checklist score is compared to the cutoff score for normal functioning infants and toddlers in the child’s age group. Children whose scores fall at or above the cutoff score are considered to be at risk of having a regulatory disorder and further diagnosis is warranted.

Training Support: The manual includes case studies.

Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities: None described.

Report Preparation Support: None described.

References:

DeGangi, Georgia A., Susan Poisson, Ruth Z. Sickel, and Andrea Santman Wiener. Infant/Toddler Symptom Checklist: A Screening Tool for Parents. San Antonio, TX: Therapy Skill Builders, Psychological Corporation, 1995.