Neuropsychological Assessment at Preschool Age: Adaptation and Validation of the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities to 4 Year-old Basque-speaking Children

Abstract

Early neuropsychological assessment provides important information for clinical practice and research. As previously no tool for neuropsychological assessment has been developed in or adapted to Basque, the aim of this study was to adapt and validate the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities for 4 years old children. The adaptation and validation of the original instrument followed the methodological steps established by the International Test Commission. We examined the psychometric properties of the adapted instrument in 273 Basque preschool children (aged between 4 years and 4 months and 4 years and 11 months; 52.2% boys). Confirmatory factor analysis showed satisfactory fit indexes except for the General Cognitive and Memory scales. Most scales presented adequate internal consistency (Reliability coefficients ranged between .55 and .81). The Basque version also showed evidence of validity based on the relationship between neuropsychological development and sex, parental education, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder-like behaviours and early neurodevelopment (p < .05; effect sizes ranged between Cohen's d = .26 and .52 and r = .15 and 39). The Basque MSCA can be regarded as a useful tool to evaluate cognitive and psychomotor development in preschool children.

Inorganic arsenic exposure and neuropsychological development of children of 4–5 years of age living in Spain

“…Overall, children's neuropsychological development was assessed at the median age of 4.5 years (standard deviation of 0.6 years) with a standardized version of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) adapted to the Spanish population (McCarthy, 2009). The MSCA was selected because of its reliability and validity, and wide use in research related to environmental health and neurodevelopment including prior studies by INMA (Andiarena et al, 2017;Forns et al, 2012;Nagle, 1979). For children from the sub-cohorts of Asturias, Gipuzkoa and Sabadell (n = 300) the MSCA test was performed at the same time urine samples were collected, along with children's weight and height measured and a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) at a median age of 4.4 years (standard deviation of 0.2 years); for the Valencian children (n = 100) the neuropsychological assessment was carried out at the median age of 5.8 years (standard deviation of 0.1 years).…”

Genetic Susceptibility to Neurotoxicity Related to Prenatal Inorganic Arsenic Exposure in Young Spanish Children

“…The neuropsychological development of the children was assessed at 4–5 years of age (mean ± SD = 5.1 ± 0.7) using the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities (MSCA) adapted to the Spanish and local population. , The original MSCA contains 18 subtests grouped into a general scale and five global subarea scales: verbal (cognitive tasks related to the processing of verbal information), quantitative (numerical abilities), perceptual-performance (cognitive tasks related to perceptual information processing, including manual performance), memory (considers short-term retention of verbal, visual, or numerical information), and the motor scale refers to fine and gross abilities. The sum of the first three scales provides the general cognitive scale.…”

Prenatal Manganese Exposure and Long-Term Neuropsychological Development at 4 Years of Age in a Population-Based Birth Cohort

“…A standardized version of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) was used to assess the children's cognitive and psychomotor development at 4 years of age [39]. The Basque version of the instrument (MSCA-E) was administered to children whose first language was Basque [40]. The MSCA comprises 18 subtests that yield standardized test scores for six subscales: verbal, perceptual-performance, quantitative, memory and motor scales.…”

“…The MSCA comprises 18 subtests that yield standardized test scores for six subscales: verbal, perceptual-performance, quantitative, memory and motor scales. The sum of scores on the first three scales provides a General Cognitive Index [40]. In addition, a previously validated Executive Function scale was analyzed [41].…”