Evaluating the Psychometric Integrity of Instruments Used in Early Intervention Research

Abstract
Researchers in early intervention recognize that instruments used to measure child developmental status should yield reliable and valid data. Many test manuals, however, present little empirical evidence regarding psychometric integrity of test scores, especially as regards young children with exceptionalities. We use data on the Battelle Developmental Inventory (BDI) from a sample of young children with disabilities as a heuristic for demonstrating the importance of reliability and validity analyses and to illustrate some of the many plausible analyses that can be employed by researchers.