To the Editor.

We feel compelled to respond to the Pediatrics article entitled, "Do Parents and Professionals Agree on the Developmental Status of High-Risk Infants?" by Kim et al because the investigation has methodologic problems and faulty conclusions. We are particularly keen that parental contribution to the monitoring of their children's development not be undermined.

We identified three major methodological problems with this study. The first problem relates to the method of completion of the Infant Monitoring Questionnaire (IMQ) (now revised and called the Ages and Stages Questionnaires). The underlying principle to valid completion of the IMQ is that parents have adequate time to observe their child across a variety of settings with necessary materials such as blocks and puzzles. It appears from the description of procedures that in this study the IMQs were not completed under these conditions and that parents may not have had the opportunity to observe their children over time in the home setting. The authors suggest, "Parents are not often reliable in recalling historical events in their children's lives." Indeed, parents may not have been reliable . . . [Full Text of this Article]