Pediatric dentists can determine chewing performance level in children

The current study was aimed to verify whether pediatric dentists could determine chewing performance level in children by using Karaduman Chewing Performance Scale (KCPS). Typical developing children and children with cerebral palsy (CP) who were referred to pediatric dentistry above the age of 2 years were included in the study. The chewing performance level was scored according to KCPS. One experienced physical therapist and three pediatric dentists independently assessed the chewing videos of the children and scored each child’s chewing function. The correlation between the KCPS scores of the physical therapist and the pediatric dentists was used for reliability. The agreement between the scorings of the physical therapist and pediatric dentists was assessed using Fleiss kappa statistics. Fifty-four typical developing children and 43 children with CP were included. A strong positive correlation between the KCPS scoring of the physical therapist and pediatric dentists was found (r=0.911–0.939, p