THE LIFE-STYLE ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE - AN INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE THE IMPACT OF DISABILITY ON THE LIVES OF CHILDREN WITH CEREBRAL-PALSY AND THEIR FAMILIES

Suitable measures of health and morbidity are less readily available f or children than they are for adults. We present a measure, which is u sed to describe the impact of impairment and disability on the lives o f children with cerebral palsy and their families. The development of this measure involved data collected from 691 children with cerebral p alsy contained within the North-East England Cerebral palsy Register a nd born between 1960 and 1985. Uniquely,multi-dimensional scaling tech niques were used to derive dimensions analogous with those described i n the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and H andicaps. We present the analyses undertaken to test the properties of the tool, which show that it is a reliable and valid measure of the d isadvantages experienced by children with cerebral palsy.