Cross-cultural adaptation, reliability and predictive validity of the Italian version of Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ)

Background: Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a motor disorder of unclear etiology that severely interferes with a child's ability to perform daily motor tasks. As a useful alternative to a time-consuming motor test and specialist evaluation, parents or teachers can complete motor questionnaires. A tool used worldwide to screen motor performance in 4- to 14-year-old children is the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire 2007 (DCDQ'07). Aims: To describe how we translated the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire 2007 (DCDQ'07) and adapted it to the Italian population and to test its preliminary psychometric properties in Italian children. Methods: Parents of a clinical group of 26 children (5-11 years old) with a diagnosis of DCD and 52 matched controls completed the DCDQ translated into Italian and adapted for cross-cultural purposes according to current guidelines. Twenty-four parents of typically developing children randomly selected completed the questionnaire twice to examine test -retest reliability. Results: The internal consistency value (Cronbach alpha) for the Italian DCDQ was 0.94. The Italian DCDQ achieved moderate-to-high test -retest reliability(ICC) for 14/15 items and a good diagnostic performance for identifying children with DCD (sensitivity 88% and specificity 96%). Conclusions: The Italian DCDQ is a valid screening tool for assessing motor performance in 5- to 11-year-old children that merits research in a larger sample. (C) 2013 European Paediatric Neurology Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.