Clinical importance of parent ratings of everyday cognitive abilities in children with learning and attention problems

This study addressed two issues: first, whether parental reports contribute information over and above a standardized psychometric assessment, and second, whether parental reports of everyday cognitive functioning might be useful in distinguishing between children with reading disabilities (RD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and combined ADHD + RD. Parent-reported informa-tion on 159 children with learning or attention problems was obtained using a questionnaire called the Parent Ratings of Everyday Cogni-tive and Academic Abilities (PRECAA). Psychometric information used for comparison included the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery–Revised, the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency–Short Form, the Vocabulary and Block Design subtests of the Wechsler Intel-ligence Scale for Children, 3rd edition, and the Developmental Test of Visual–Motor Integration. The PRECAA was found to be sensitive to group differences between children with RD and children with ADHD and combined ADHD + RD. Its inclusion resulted in a significant increase in the number of children correctly classified compared to the use of psychometric measures alone. The PRECAA correctly classified more children (66%) than did the standard psychometric measures (50%). In fact, a very high percentage of children with ADHD (81%) were correctly classified using the PRECAA. These findings suggest that the PRECAA may be a useful aid to clinicians in the identification of children with learning and attention problems. Arecent review of the literaturethat evaluated parents as in-formation sources concluded that good quality information abou