How PEDS®:Developmental Milestones Assessment Level (PEDS:DM-AL®) Helps

The PEDS:DM® Assessment Level is designed for developmental follow-up (e.g., in NICU, EI, foster care) and all other programs where children are at elevated risk for problems. The PEDS:DM®- Assessment Level enables a detailed look at each developmental domain, i.e., expressive language, receptive language, fine motor, gross motor, self-help, social-emotional, and for older children, math and reading skills.

Below is an A — Z list of features and benefits of the PEDS:DM-AL®. (You can also view our case example showing some of the items, recording grid as completed over time here.)

  1. Designed for children from birth to 7 years-11 months
  2. Enables strengths and weaknesses to be viewed across domains
  3. Has a test booklet that is reusable with each child throughout the 0 to 8 year age range
  4. Produces age-equivalent scores (as well as cutoffs) each time a child is measured
  5. Illustrates how to use age-equivalent scores to produce percentage of delay, as well as percentage of skills mastered
  6. Detects advanced development as well as deficiencies
  7. Provides progress monitoring
  8. Includes a mechanism for explain results to parents, i.e., a performance grid showing changes over time in relation to chronological age
  9. Indicates how to adjust for prematurity
  10. Offered in English as well as Spanish and Taiwanese (Arabic and Portuguese coming soon)
  11. Includes optional supplementary measures for autism spectrum disorder, psychosocial risk, parent-child interactions, and academic/mental health screens for older children
  12. Includes in its manual, information handouts for parents on a range of developmental-behavioral topics along with referral resources
  13. Can be used with Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS®) using the same longitudinal form to capture parents’ concerns, observations, child-rearing challenges, and informational needs.
  14. Standardized recently, i.e., 2007 on a nationally representative sample of more than 1600 children around the US and Canada
  15. Reliable with high inter-rater, test-retest and internal consistency
  16. Validated in comparison with diagnostic measures on more than 1600 children.
  17. Compared to diagnostic measures that were proven to have predictive validity
  18. High correlations with like subtests on a range of diagnostic tests
  19. Can be administered by parent-report, parent/older-child interview, or hands-on
  20. Written at the 2nd grade level, meaning that almost all parents can read and respond to the questions
  21. Takes 15 minutes or less to administer and score
  22. Widely used in early intervention intake and monitoring, NICU follow-up programs, and foster care services
  23. Includes training support, i.e., guidelines for establishing rapport with children, managing those with known disabilities during testing, explaining test results, etc.
  24. Website support for training (www.pedstest.com) with live links to life-long professional learning sites, online videos, slide shows, research findings, FAQs, etc.
  25. Website support for parenting information including live links to referral services, downloadable parent handouts in English and Spanish, etc.
  26. Is available online, with automated scoring, reports for parents, referral letters when needed, and a parent portal so that families can complete the PEDS:DM-AL® from home but will not see results.

See this case study of Rachel for an example of the PEDS:DM-AL® completed over time.