Two focus groups of three and six clinicians were held at a local pediatric hospital.
Clinicians with four or more years of experience evaluating children with disabilities
and who were English speaking were recruited through personal contacts. Each group
lasted up to 90 minutes andwas led by two facilitators from the project team experienced
in conducting focus groups. Clinicians were provided with the expanded list of items
and asked to respond to the following questions: (a) Are there other important functional
skills in each domain that should be addressed? (b) Are the items written clearly for
parents and/or clinicians to understand and respond to? and (c) Given the expanded
content of the item bank, what do you think would be the clearest and most appropriate
title for each scale? For the response options, clinicians were asked: (a) Are the definitions
of each rating scale point clear? (b) Do the rating scale points reflect meaningful
distinctions in management of daily life tasks? (c)Will parents and/or clinicians be able
to make these distinctions in a child’s management of daily skills? and (d) Do you have
a preference for a “Difficulty” (respond with how difficult) versus an “Easy” (respond
with how easy) scale? The discussion was audiotaped and the facilitators took notes
throughout. The clinician participants provided written informed consent before participation
and were provided with an honorarium following the group. Table 1 provides a
description of the participants.