Assessment tools should be both reliable and valid. Reliable tools are consistent, which means if  you tested the same child twice in the same week, they should get the same score both times. Valid tools are accurate, which means they measure what they say they measure. 

There are many ways to establish that a tool is reliable and valid. The important piece to look for  is that both the reliability and validity have been tested.  

There are three publications that describe how the Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool (PediEAT)  was developed, including its reliability and validity.

Publication 1: Development and Content Validation of the Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool  (Pedi-EAT)

Published in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2014

This publication describes how the items for the PediEAT were developed and  establishes the tool’s validity. The tool development team first generated items from many  sources (parent descriptions of problematic feeding, literature review, review of existing tools).  Then, an interdisciplinary team of experts rated the content validity using established content  validity indices. Finally, the team solicited feedback from parents of children with and without  feeding problems about the tool.  

Publication 2: The Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool: Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties

Published in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 2018

This publication describes how the reliability and validity of the tool was tested. The  team used psychometric methods to remove redundant items, do another check on validity,  and establish reliability. At the end of this testing, the team was able to conclude that the tool  had strong reliability and validity.

Publication 3: Age-based Norm-Reference Values for the Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool

Published in Pediatric Research, 2018

While not required, a tool that has age-based norm-reference values can help you  understand how one child’s score compares to other children their age. Over 1000 parents of  children 6 months to 7 years completed the PediEAT to determine what typical scores are at  different ages. When you download the PediEAT, you will be able to see cut-off scores that  indicate how concerning a child’s scores are by subsection.