Make Bayley III Scores Comparable between United States and German Norms—Development of Conversion Equations

Abstract

Aim Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Bayley-III) determines scaled scores and converts these into composite scores. It was shown that applying the German and the U.S. manual leads to different results. This study aims to systematically analyze the differences between the U.S. and German Bayley-III version and to develop conversion equations.

Methods This simulation study generated a dataset of pairs of U.S. and German Bayley-III composite scores (cognitive: n = 4,416, language: n = 240,000, motor: n = 314,000) by converting the same number of achievable tasks for 48 age groups. Bland–Altman plot and regression analyses were performed to develop conversion equations for all age groups.

Results German and US Bayley-III scores demonstrate distinct slope and interception for cognitive, language, and motor composite scores. Lower developmental performance leads to higher composite scores with U.S. norms compared with German norms (up to 15 points). These differences varied between age groups. With newly developed conversion equations, the results can be converted (R ²> 0.98).

Interpretation This study confirms systematic differences between U.S. and German Bayley test results due to different reference cohorts. Our data consider the full age range and add conversion equations. These findings need to be acknowledged when comparing Bayley Scores internationally.

Keywords

Bayley - children - comparison - neurodevelopment

^* This study was achieved in collaboration with GTC Consortium: Niels Rochow[1] [6] [7], Pauline Kosmann[1], Hon Yiu So[4], Markus Rochow[3], Erin Landau-Crangle[8], Dirk A. Wackernagel[9], Carmel T. Collins[10], Rudolf Ascherl[2], Margarita Thanhäuser[5], Zahra Khan[11], Daniel Moya[12], Dimitrios Konstantelos[13], Wolfgang, Goepel[14], Christoph Haertel[15], Mandy B. Belfort[16], Mats Blennow[9], Maria Makrides[10], Berndt Urlesberger[17], Fernando Moya[12], Mario Ruediger[13], Annett Blaeser[2], Nadja Haiden[5], Christoph Fusch[1] [6]

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Paracelsus Medical University, General Hospital, Nuremberg, Germany

² Hospital for Children and Adolescents, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

³ Carl-Thiem-Hospital, Cottbus, Germany

⁴ Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, United States

⁵ Medical University Vienna, Vienna, Austria

⁶ Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

⁷ Department of Pediatrics, Rostock University Medical Center, Rostock, Germany

⁸ The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

⁹ Karolinska Institutet and University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

¹⁰ South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute, Adelaide, Australia

¹¹ University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

¹² Betty Cameron Children's Hospital, Wilmington, United States

¹³ Department for Neonatology and Pediatric Intensive Care Medicine, Klinik und Poliklinik für Kinderheilkunde, Universitätsklinikum Dresden an der TU Dresden, Germany

¹⁴ University of Luebeck, Luebeck, Germany

¹⁵ University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany

¹⁶ Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, United States

¹⁷ Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

Publication History

Received: 27 June 2022

Accepted: 28 November 2022

Accepted Manuscript online:
28 November 2022

Article published online:
23 January 2023

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