The objectives of this study were to translate the IDELA to Brazilian Portuguese, to conduct its cultural adaptation to the Brazilian population, to analyze its content validity, to assess its inter-rater reliability, to analyze the internal consistency of its sub-domains and to investigate associations between the child’s IDELA scores and sociodemographic characteristics of the family.
This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study, in which a sample of 565 preschool children were assessed with the IDELA in the city of Embu das Artes, São Paulo. Results indicated that the IDELA was successfully translated and culturally adapted to the Brazilian population, presenting adequate content validity, good internal consistency of its sub-domains and very high inter-rater reliability. Generally, the Brazilian version of the IDELA proved to be feasible, adequate and reliable to assess early childhood development and school readiness of preschool age children in Brazil. Future studies could use the IDELA to provide relevant data about the children’s development and school readiness in other Brazilian regions that will be useful in the planning of public health and education policies to improve children’s integral development and their academic achievement.