Validity and reliability of the Japanese version of the family needs survey.
The Japanese Family Needs Survey is a valid 34-item tool to identify family priorities across disability types and child ages 0-15.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ueda et al. (2013) translated the Family Needs Survey into Japanese.
They asked parents of children with mixed disabilities to fill it out.
Kids were aged 0-15. The team checked if the 34 items still made sense and hung together.
What they found
The Japanese form kept the same groups of needs as the English one.
Scores were steady when parents took it twice.
The tool is ready to find what families say they need most.
How this fits with other research
Two years later the same lab did the same job with the Family Outcomes Survey-Revised (Kimiko et al., 2015). The first paper asks, "What do you need?" The second asks, "Did you get it?" Use them as a pair.
Higgins et al. (2021) made a nine-item scale for community access. Their tool is short; the FNS is wide. Pick FNS when you want the full picture, MyFACE when time is tight.
Jubenville-Wood et al. (2024) checked strain in Hong Kong. Both studies show Asian translations hold up, so you can trust local versions.
Why it matters
You now have a free, 34-item checklist that Japanese parents can complete in five minutes. Use it at intake to set goals that match family priorities instead of guessing.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Early intervention and disability services in Japan historically have focused on supporting the individual with a disability, with only secondary attention to family needs and priorities. Since the Basic Law for Persons with Disabilities was codified in 2011, the Japanese government has been responsible for supporting families with members who have disabilities. To assess the needs of these families, we evaluated the reliability and validity of the Family Needs Survey (FNS), initially developed in 1988 (Bailey & Simeonsson), to determine its usefulness for programs providing services for Japanese families who have a child with a disability. The FNS is a practical tool to assess family needs and is already used across many different cultures and populations. To evaluate the reliability and validity of the FNS, we conducted an anonymous survey with a self-administered questionnaire at 6 treatment and education institutions, 3 medical institutions mainly for children with disabilities, and 39 special needs schools in the Osaka area. We analyzed 1171 parents' survey responses: 452 fathers and 719 mothers of children with disabilities aged 0-15 years old who answered all items on the Japanese version of the FNS. Another survey was administered to 130 specialists who work with children with disabilities to assess the content validity of the Japanese version of the FNS. We verified the factor structure, content validity, and reliability of the Japanese version of the FNS as an assessment tool with 34 items among four factors that were based on the same items in the original FNS. The assessment could be used for families with school-age children as well as younger children, in contrast to the original version, which is not appropriate for school-age children. We also confirmed that it could be used without regard to type or degree of disability.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.07.024