Evaluation of an activities of daily stronglivingstrong scale for.pdfVIP

Disability and Health Journal 6 (2013) 8e17 Research Paper Evaluation of an activities of daily living scale for adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities Matthew J. Maenner, Ph.D.*, Leann E. Smith, Ph.D., Jinkuk Hong, Ph.D., Renee Makuch, B.S., Jan S. Greenberg, Ph.D., and Marsha R. Mailick, Ph.D. Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Avenue, Room 529A, Madison, WI 53705, USA Abstract Background: Activity limitations are an important and useful dimension of disability, but there are few validated measures of activity limitations for adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities. Objective/hypothesis: To describe the development of the Waisman Activities of Daily Living (W-ADL) Scale for adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities, and systematically evaluate its measurement properties according to an established set of criteria. Methods: The W-ADL was administered among four longitudinally studied groups of adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities: 406 with autism; 147 with fragile-X syndrome; 169 with Down syndrome; and 292 with intellectual disability of other or unknown origin. The W-ADL contains 17 activities and each is rated on a 3-point scale (0 5 ‘‘does not do at all’’, 1 5 ‘‘does with help’’, 2 5 ‘‘independent’’), and a standard set of criteria were used to evaluate its measurement properties. Results: Across the disability groups, Cronbach’s alphas ranged from 0.88 to 0.94, and a single-factor structure was most parsimonious. The W-ADL was reliable over time, with weighted kappas between 0.92 and 0.93. Criterion and con