A1671
Title: A longitudinal item response theory approach to create an integrative of child neurodevelopment
Authors: Shelley Liu - Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (United States) [presenting]
Abstract: A common challenge in environmental epidemiology cohort studies examining longitudinal neurodevelopment is the use of different assessment tasks across follow-up periods. Due to various factors such as cohort design, reducing participant burden, and age-appropriateness of measures, tasks administered at different time points may differ in format and content. This makes it difficult to study the longitudinal trajectory of a neurodevelopmental domain. Consequently, studies often limit analyses to the common tasks that are used across ages when studying longitudinal development. However, using only the common tasks across ages could result in studying a shorter span of development than desired, and valuable information from age-specific tasks may be missed. An integrative modeling approach using longitudinal item response theory (IRT) was developed to integrate multiple executive functioning assessments. Using working memory, an executive functioning domain, as an example, multiple assessments (DMTS, IRA, NIH Toolbox, and CANTAB) at ages 6, 8, and 10 in the PROGRESS cohort were integrated. Three approaches -direct estimation, latent growth curve IRT, and parameter linking- were compared to place scores from tasks onto a common scale and generate longitudinal latent working memory scores. The harmonized framework enabled examination of the impacts of early childhood lead exposure on longitudinal working memory trajectories with greater precision.
