Latent relations of Early Childhood Development Screening Toolkit (e-BAASIK) multi-domains

The purpose of the study was to find out what is the latent structure of the e-BAASIK multi-scales. The research sample consisted of children aged 5 to 6 years (N= 360 children, 50% girls and 50% boys). A total of 30 scale measures of the e-BAASIK Parent Survey (PS), Preschool Teacher Survey (PTS), and Child’s Ability and Skills Test (CAST) were used in a model. The PS and PTS are similar and mostly show statistically significant moderately close correlations between related scales. When conducting exploratory factor analysis, 5 independent factors were retrieved. The first strongest latent variable/factor showed the relationship between CAST (performance test), Parent Survey and Teacher Survey assessed children's pre-academic skills (reading, writing, mathematics), cognitive abilities, and language and speech skills. The next two factors unified the different measures of adaptive behavior, ability, and motor skills scales of the same survey. Each of the last two factors combined the behavioral problems scales and the emotional problems scales from both forms of the survey. The last two factors are not only independent factors from the other 3 factors, but also more unified in terms of content. Children's individual e-BAASIK score profiles illuminate this latent structure very well.