Bayesian Hierarchical Multidimensional Item Response Modeling of Small Sample, Sparse Data for Personalized Developmental Surveillance.

Developmental surveillance tools are used to closely monitor the early development of infants and young children. This study provides a novel implementation of a multidimensional item response model, using Bayesian hierarchical priors, to construct developmental profiles for a small sample of children (N = 115) with sparse data collected through an online developmental surveillance tool. The surveillance tool records 348 developmental milestones measured from birth to three years of age, within six functional domains: auditory, hands, movement, speech, tactile, and vision. The profiles were constructed in three steps: (1) the multidimensional item response model, embedded in the Bayesian hierarchical framework, was implemented in order to measure both the latent abilities of the children and attributes of the milestones, while retaining the correlation structure among the latent developmental domains; (2) subsequent hierarchical clustering of the multidimensional ability estimates enabled identification of subgroups of children; and (3) information from the posterior distributions of the item response model parameters and the results of the clustering were used to construct a personalized profile of development for each child. These individual profiles support early identification of, and personalized early interventions for, children with developmental delay.