An assessment is an organized evaluation of a child’s advancement, this includes physical, intellectual, language, emotional and social – by a developmental assessment professional, or a group of experts that can include a pediatrician, audiologist, language specialist, child analyst, occupational therapist and a physical therapist. This assessment is tailored to a child’s age and suspected delay or problem.
The Proper name/Acronym of this Pediatric Assessment
The assessment is a widely used assessment and is generally known as the Developmental Screening Test with acronym (DDST).
When it was developed
The developmental screen test (DDST) was originally developed at the University of Colorado medical Center, Denver, USA in 1967. And was revised in 1992 and called the DENVER II.
Appropriate age(s) for the assessment
The assessment is widely used to examine the developmental progress of children from their birth until the age of six (6).
What the Assessment Measures
The assessment is to screen children from one month to six years of age to measure or check for possible developmental problems, to confirm if there are any suspected problems with an objective measure, examine a child’s performance on several age-appropriate tasks, also to monitor children who are at risk for developmental problems and designed to compare the performance of a child to other children’s performance of the same age.
The assessment is primarily based on the specialists’ definite observation and the time required to carry out the assessment is about 10-20 minutes on average to administer and interpret. Though there are sometimes where there are variation in the time taken to perform this test depending on the age and co-operation of the child in particular.
The Environment Required to Administer the Assessment
The assessment can be performed based on the interviews done by anyone who takes interests in working with children and also someone who is a medical professional. The assessment should be carried out in a medical environment, or at the home of the child.
How the Assessment is Administered
The assessment can be administered following the process below:
- Development of the age line:
- The sequential age is determined (subtract weeks if premature)
- A line should be drawn through the child’s adjusted age on the score sheet
- Then the test that the line intersects first can be performed.
- Test the kid to their roof level:
- Pass: This implies the child finishes the task accurately, or the parents or guardian reports that the child can finish the task (this is adequate just on those things that have an “R “alongside the container). The child is given three possibilities. The child must have three passes before going ahead to another part.
- Fail: The child endeavors to finish the assignment, yet does so incorrectly on the three attempts. When the child goes through three disappointments, this demonstrates a roof level has been reached, and you ought to go ahead to the following segment (if there are three passes in that part already).
- Refuse: The child declines to finish the task. If it is clear that the child can do the assignment, yet declines out of fatigue, the administrator may decide to pass the child on that thing
- The roof level is reached when there are: three disappointments recorded
- It might be important to perform tests very close to, but not touching the age line (before or after) if:
- the patient can’t pass any things that the age line crosses or
- the patient finishes all things crossed by the age line and hasn’t fizzled three things
How it is scored
Determining the rate of typical age matched kids that pass the item obliges looking at the score sheet. If the adjusted age line:
- goes to one side of the rectangle particularly the left side: less than 25% of age matched children can pass this task
- goes through the left edge of the rectangle: 25% of age matched children can pass this task
- goes through the little vertical line stretching out from the highest point of the rectangle: 50% of age matched kids can pass this task
- goes through the partition between the light and shaded region of the rectangle: 75% of age matched children can pass this task
- goes through the right edge of the rectangle: 90% of age matched children can pass this task
- goes to one side of the rectangle particularly the right: this is known as a delay
What high score means
If child passes an item that falls completely to the right of age line, the child’s development is considered advanced. This is an item that most children of that age do not pass until they are older
Advanced items are not considered for overall interpreting of test
What low score means
A delay is indicated when a child fails or refuses an item that falls completely to the left of the age line Child has failed an item that that 90% of children in the standardization sample passed at an e.
References
- Development assessments: What you need to know | BabyCenter. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2015, from https://www.babycenter.com/0_development-assessments-what-you-need-to-know_6709.bc
- Denver Developmental Screening Test. DDST information. Patient | Patient. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2015, from https://patient.info/doctor/denver-developmental-screening-test
- Developmental Screening Tools. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2015, from https://www.earlychildhoodmichigan.org/articles/7-03/DevScrTools7-03.htm
- Denver Developmental Screening Test II. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2015, from https://stephanl.faculty.mjc.edu/overview.pdfhttps://www.fpnotebook.com/peds/neuro/dnvrdvlpmntlscrngtsti.htm
- Dev. Screenings ’92. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2015, from https://www.umsl.edu/~garziar/develop_screenings.htm