Alan Jette Co-Presents at ACRM Annual Conference
NERSCIC Principal Investigator and Boston ROC Co-Director Alan Jette, PhD, PT, and PRO Core Director Wendy Coster, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, along with colleagues David Tulsky, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI and Vanessa Noonan, PT, PhD, Rick Hansen Institute, Vancouver, BC, CA held a symposium at this years ACRM annual conference in Vancouver, entitled “Development and Initial Evaluation of the SCI-CAT Functional Assessment Instrument.”
This symposium presented the latest findings of a new functional measure for adults with spinal cord injury, called the Spinal Cord Injury Computer Adaptive Test (SCI-CAT). There is growing recognition that limitations of current SCI outcome measures pose a serious impediment to conducting SCI research and monitoring clinical programs. The SCI-CAT is a state-of-the-art functional measure for adults with spinal cord injury, supported by the NIDRR National Model Systems Program for Spinal Cord Injury. Presenters discussed computer adaptive testing (CAT) methods, reviewed the development of the SCI-CAT measure, presented findings on the SCI-CAT’s psychometric properties, and over-viewed ongoing efforts to link the SCI-CAT with a pediatric SCI functional assessment measure to enable the assessment of functional abilities across the lifespan. These innovative measures can be used to advance spinal cord injury research and clinical practice.
To read more about the development of the SCI-CAT instrument, two new papers were published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation on the item bank development and initial evaluation.
