A new scale for the measurement of quality of life in children with intellectual disability.
KidsLife gives BCBAs a child-centered, research-backed way to measure quality of life in clients with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Libero et al. (2016) built a new scale for kids with intellectual disability. The team wanted a tool that could track how these children feel about their own lives.
They named it the KidsLife scale. It has 96 items that cover eight areas like friends, school, and mood.
What they found
The scale worked well. It gave steady scores when kids took it twice and matched what parents and teachers said.
All eight parts held together, so the tool can be used in clinics and schools.
How this fits with other research
Granieri et al. (2020) took the same eight-domain frame and made KidsLife-ASD for autistic children with ID. The new form keeps the heart of the 2016 scale but adds autism-friendly wording.
Austin et al. (2015) did something similar for adults. Their INICO-FEAPS scale also has eight domains, but the items ask about adult life like jobs and living away from parents.
Unwin et al. (2014) made a short 16-item caregiver scale for adults with ID who show aggression. It is quicker, yet it looks at caregiver worry more than child happiness.
Why it matters
If you serve school-age clients with ID, you now have a kid-friendly tool that speaks their language. Use the 96-item KidsLife at intake, then pick key domains to re-check each quarter. Share the graph with parents to show why goals target friendships or leisure, not just table-top skills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities make up a group which is in urgent need of an adequate operationalisation of the quality of life construct, not only to improve individual personal outcomes but also to develop and implement evidence based practices. For that reason, and with the aim of answering the growing demand for an adequate evaluation instrument for this group, the KidsLife scale was developed. METHOD: This research provides evidence of the reliability and validity of the scale, which is composed of 96 items spread over eight subscales, and completed by a third-party respondent. The validation sample comprised 1060 people with intellectual disability, with ages ranging from 4 to 21 years old (M=13.51; SD=5.04). RESULTS: The results suggest that the eight quality of life domains assessed on the scale are reliable (Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.812 to 0.949). The evidence of the validity of the construct provided by Confirmatory Factor Analysis also demonstrated adequate indexes of fit for the eight-domain model. DISCUSSION: Future lines of research which may use the KidsLife Scale are suggested and discussed.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2016.03.005