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Click to read Inside Sargent's article on Wendy
Coster's measurement tools. |
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Dr. Wendy
Coster’s research is directed at clarifying the individual and contextual
factors associated with successful functional activity performance and social
participation by children with disabilities. She has published several
conceptual papers on the application of the disablement framework to children
and challenges in using the ICF to define relevant outcomes for rehabilitation
services. This theoretical work also has provided the foundation for the
development of standardized functional outcome measures that are grounded in
current models. She is primary author of the School Function Assessment (SFA) and co-author with Dr. Haley of the Pediatric
Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI),
which are widely used both nationally and internationally in research and
clinical practice. Dr. Coster is
currently involved in several measurement development projects, including the
development of measures of participation and environment for children with
disabilities, and further development of the Activity Measures for Post-Acute
Care (AM-PAC), a functional outcome for adults receiving rehabilitation
services. Dr. Coster is a member of the American Occupational Therapy Association and the Association for Psychological Science. |
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The primary focus
of my research program is the development of conceptually grounded,
psychometrically sound measures of activity, participation, and environment.
My overarching concern is to create measures for the field of rehabilitation
that appropriately reflect individuals’ ability to engage in activities and
participate in situations that are important for their satisfaction and
well-being. Some of these measures are directed to practice, i.e. to design
assessments that gather information on the issues of greatest relevance to
consumers. Others are designed to support outcomes measurement purposes
(either research or program evaluation). Although my primary clinical work
has been with children, my work extends to adult populations as well. The
long term goal of this work is the development of a series of measures that
are conceptually (and, potentially, statistically) linked that support a
variety of assessment or data gathering purposes. Specific projects include: •
Development of Measures of Participation
and Environment for Children with Disabilities. Project Website: http://www.bu.edu/kidsworld/ This project, which began in October 2007, is funded through a
Field-Initiated Grant from the National Institute for Disability and
Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). This project will develop new measures of
participation and environment using input from families and their children
with disabilities. They will be based on clear and consistently applied operational
definitions of both participation and environment, and will be developed in a
form that supports maximal flexibility in mode of administration. The project
is a collaborative effort between experienced investigators in the The project has three major phases. The first phase, currently
underway, is a development phase that will synthesize results from prior
research on participation and environment and analysis of the ICF with
information derived from focus groups of caregivers and children and youth
with a variety of disabilities to identify meaningful domains and item
content areas for the new measures. Initial item pools will be developed,
subjected to expert review and cognitive testing, and then field tested with
both caregiver and child respondents to identify any significant problems
with scaling or content coverage using item response theory (IRT) methods.
After revisions based on these results, a larger field study will be
conducted using both paper and web-based survey formats to examine the
properties of the revised item pools. The ultimate aim is to develop large
pools of participation and environment items that can support survey and
computer-adaptive testing measures that are linked on a common scale. This
approach will allow flexible development of alternative forms whose derived
scores can be compared directly with one another, e.g. so that results from
different studies are more easily compared. The present project will develop
and test (using simulation studies) short survey forms from the initial pools
for immediate use. •
Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) of
Pediatric Self-Care and Social Function. This is the second phase of a project to revise, expand, and develop a
CAT version of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI). The
work, which began in July 2008, is being done in collaboration with Dr.
Stephen Haley of the Health and Disability Research Institute at the BU |
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The following are recent projects undertaken by Wendy Coster's
doctoral students in the Boston University ScD program in Rehabilitation Sciences:
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Patterns of recovery of function in the first
year post-discharge from inpatient rehabilitation. •
Activity participation of young children: an
ecological perspective. •
Children’s participation in household tasks. |
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2008 - 2010 NIH/NICHD/NCMMR – Computer Adaptive Testing of Pediatric
Self-Care and Social Function (STTR Phase II). (Richard Moed, CRE/Care,
P.I.). Subcontract Investigator. 2007-2010 NIDRR, US Department of Education – Field Initiated Research
Project (H133G070140) Principal Investigator: Development of measures of
participation and environment for children with disabilities. 2004-2006 NIH/NICHD – Dynamic Assessment of Pediatric Health and
Functioning (R21 HD045841-01). 2006 (Ware, P.I.; Quality Metric). P.I. on
subcontract. 2004-2007 NIH/NICHD – Developing a Computer Adaptive TBI Cognitive
Measure (R21 HD-045869). (Velozo, PI; 2002-2005 NIH/NICHD & AHRQ - Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) of
Post-Acute Care Functioning (R01HD43568)(Haley, PI.) Research Scientist. 2000-2002 NICHD/NCMRR – Clinical Performance Measure for Pediatric
Brain Injury (HD36569) SBIR Phase II project directed by New England
Rehabilitation Institutes (Smith, PI). Co-investigator on subcontract. 1999-2004 NIDRR, US Department of Education - Rehabilitation Research
and Training Center on Measuring Rehabilitation Outcomes (H133B990005)(Jette,
PI) Co-Investigator, Project 1: Development of an activity scale to measure
the impact of therapeutic interventions on function across rehabilitation
settings (S Haley, Project Director). Director, Project 4: Examining
responsiveness of outcome measures. 1999 - NIH/NIA. Edward R. Roybal Center Consortium (P50
AG11669)(Jette, PI) Co-Investigator, Project 1: Improved measures of function
and disability. |
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Dept of Occupational Therapy Boston
University | Sargent
College | OT Programs
| PT/AT Programs | InfoCenter |
June 9, 2009