Determination of psychometric properties of learning disability early symptoms screening scale

In this study, it was aimed to develop The Learning Disability Early Symptoms Screening Scale (LDESSS) and determine the psychometric properties of the scale. The most important reason of this study is that there is no comprehensive scale that assess symptoms of early childhood learning difficulties in Turkey for early detection of students who may have learning difficulties in school age. Numbers of participated parents were 151 in pilot implementation, 739 in main implementation and 340 in confirmatory factor analysis. Totally 1230 parents whose children were diagnosed with any area of learning disability were included in the study. In addition, data from 93 parents and 106 parents were obtained for the criteria-dependent validity stage and the test-repeat-test application stage. In order to examine the validity of the scale; criteria-referenced validity, structure validity, discriminating validity and scope validity were carried out within the scope of this scale development study. Item-Total correlation, correlation between subscales, internal consistency reliability, upper and lower 27% confidence, split-half reliability and test-retest reliability analyzes were carried out to examine the reliability of the scale. The results of the analyses showed that findings was sufficient to verify validity and reliability of the scale. It has been observed that LDESSS consists of 52 items and four sub - factors, that the sub-factors are language development and communication, cognitive skills, psychomotor development skills, social-emotional skills. The findings were discussed in accordance with the criteria set out in literature.