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Background: The Sheffield Learning Disabilities Outcome Measure (SLDOM) is routinely used across clinical services in the UK, despite not yet showing evidence of psychometric reliability or validity. However, it is reported that the SLDOM demonstrates good face validity, and represents a valuable tool for providing useful information around the parent‐child relationship in the context of having a child with a Learning Disability (LD). Method: This study involved 263 parents or carers of a child with LD who completed the SLDOM. Data from this study were subjected to factor analysis. Results: These findings suggest that the SLDOM could be viewed as a tool that measures two concepts: (1) internal factors central to the parent/carer in relation to having a child with LD and (2) external factors in terms of the context and environment surrounding a child with LD. To our knowledge, this study is one of the first to investigate the psychometric properties of the SLDOM. Conclusions: This has implications in terms of building evidence to support the clinical and research use of this tool; to provide evidence‐based clinical services, and overall, to gain a better understanding of patients and their families, which will allow for optimum service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early diagnosis of children who have intellectual disability (ID) is crucial to ensuring the varied and complex needs of these people and their families are met in a timely and appropriate way. The ability to easily identify all children who should be assessed for ID would increase the chances of children with ID being diagnosed early on in life. This article describes ID, the kind of support children with ID need, and how nursing staff might use the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Screening Questionnaire (CAIDS-Q) to help identify children who should be formally assessed for ID. Nurses who would benefit from a greater ability to identify ID include health visitors, school nurses, practice nurses, and nurses working in paediatric clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]