The development and testing of a module on child functioning for identifying children with disabilities on surveys. I: Background.

This is the first of three papers that will document the development of a survey module on child functioning developed by UNICEF in collaboration with the Washington Group on Disability Statistics (WG), and demonstrate - both conceptually and through test results - the strengths of that module compared with alternative tools for identifying children with disabilities in household surveys. This first paper in the series sets the background and reviews the literature leading to the development of the UNICEF/WG Child Functioning Module (CFM) and presents the WG Short Set of questions (WG-SS) and the Ten Question Screening Instrument (TQSI) as precursors, outlining some of their shortcomings and how the UNICEF/WG CFM was designed to meet those challenges. Subsequent articles will summarize results from the cognitive and field testing of the CFM including comparisons with results derived from the TQSI and the WG-SS. Published by Elsevier Inc.