Validity and Reliability of the Turkish Version of School Function Assessment in Children with Special Needs

Background: To assess the validity and reliability of the Turkish Version of School Function Assessment in children with special needs. Methods: School children between 6 and 12 years of age with special needs and their typically developing counterparts participated in the study. The School Function Assessment (SFA) was the main outcome with the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory providing data for the convergent construct validity analysis. Results: The SFA’s convergent construct validity analysis results were satisfactory. There were no differences between genders, and significant differences between children with and without special needs; showing an acceptable discriminative construct validity and known-group validity for the SFA. The Cronbach’s alpha scores were over 0.90 for all domains, showing an excellent internal consistency. Implications for School Health Policy, Practice and Equity: Wide usage of the SFA in school settings can enable tailoring specific educational and rehabilitative interventions through making the children’s limitations and strengths within the school context clear. Conclusions: The results indicate that the Turkish version of the SFA is a valid and reliable assessment tool for school children with disabilities. This tool can help teachers and therapists to understand children’s school functioning.