Parent assessment of their child's play: A psychometric study on the Pretend Play Enjoyment Developmental Checklist.

INTRODUCTION

Play is a crucial occupation of children's that requires reliable and valid assessment. This study aimed to investigate validity and reliability of the parent version of the Pretend Play Enjoyment Developmental Checklist (PPE-DC).

METHODS

This cross-sectional psychometric study included 10 Iranian occupational therapists from paediatric clinical practice (mean age of 36.5 years) with an average of 14.5 years of experience. Thirty parents and their neurodivergent children (6 girls; mean = 55.90 months; SD = 14.25) and 30 parents and their neurotypical children (14 girls; mean age = 53.4 months; SD = 20.45) participated. Parents filled in the PPE-DC, and a trained therapist assessed children with the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA) within 10 days of parents filling in the PPE-DC.

RESULTS

The content validity ratio was 1. Content validity index was >0.8. There were significant differences for all parent PPE-DC scores between neurotypical and neurodivergent children ( < 0.001). For concurrent validity, there were moderate significant relationships between the ChIPPA and PPE-DC items. Test-retest reliability was excellent (intraclass correlation coefficient > 0.99).

CONCLUSION

The PPE-DC Parent version is a reliable and valid parent's measurement of their child's level of complexity of play skills.