Authors:
William K. Frankenburg and J.B. Dodds

Publisher:
Denver Developmental Materials, Inc.
1-800-419-4729 • 303-355-4729
www.denverii.com

Initial Material Cost:
Denver II Test Kit (includes 100 forms, Screening Manual, and test items): $84 Training Video: $215 (purchase) or $90/week (on-site rental)

Representativeness of Norming Sample:
The English version of the test was normed from 1987 to 1989 on a quota sample of 2,096 English-speaking children in Colorado with no obvious special needs. These children were of varying ages (between 2 weeks and 6.5 years), levels of maternal education, places of residence and cultural backgrounds. The Denver norming sample is representative of Colorado children (from 1980 US Census), and slightly overrepresents Hispanic infants, and underrepresents African American infants. However, when comparing the Colorado average 90% norms with the theoretical US composite norms, there were no clinically significant differences. The DDST-II Spanish version was not normed on Spanish-speaking children, but is a direct translation.

Languages:
English and Spanish (translation of directions and test forms)

Type of Assessment:
Direct child assessment and parent report

Age Range and Administration Interval:
Birth to 6 years

Personnel, Training, Administration, and Scoring Requirements:
Administration of the DDST-II and scoring of the DDST-II and PDQ-II require a professional or paraprofessional. The manual suggests that users carefully review the manual, review the training videotape, and practice testing children of various age groups in order to properly administer and interpret the DDST-II. A two-day training is also suggested. The test takes 10 to 20 minutes to administer, and 1 to 2 minutes to score. The Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire (PDQ-II) takes about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

Summary
Initial Material Cost: 1 (> $100)
Reliability: 3 (both inter-rater and test-retest reliability have high percent agreement)
Validity: 1 (none described)
Norming Sample Characteristics: 2 (not nationally representative)
Ease of Administration and Scoring: 3 (scoring the DDST-II and the PDQ-II requires a highly trained individual)

Description: The DDST-II is a 125-item standardized measure that is designed to determine whether a child’s development is within the normal range. It includes a set of questions for parents and tests for the child on twenty simple tasks and items that fall into four sectors: Personal-Social (25 items), Fine Motor Adaptive (29 items), Language (39 items), and Gross Motor (32 items). The number of items administered during an assessment will vary with the child’s age and ability.

A Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire (PDQ-II) has been developed to help parents quickly identify whether their children need further assessment. The PDQ-II is a pre-screening consisting of 91 parent questions from the DDST-II. It was created for parents to complete easily and quickly to assess whether their children have non-normal scores and need to complete the full DDST-II. The PDQ-II was revised in 1998 and uses the norms developed for the DDST-II. The questionnaires are divided by age range (0 to 9 months, 9 to 24 months, 2 to 4 years, and 4 to 6 years).

Uses of Information: The DDST-II is intended for use as a screening tool to detect developmental delays. The DDST-II provides a clinical impression of a child’s overall development and confirms suspected potential developmental difficulties with an objective measure. It can be used to determine how a child compares to other children and identify children for whom additional in-depth assessment should be conducted. The authors do not recommend using it to predict later development status, as an in-depth assessment of developmental functioning, or to plan individual intervention programs.

Reliability: (1) Internal consistency reliability: no information available. (2) Test-retest reliability: 89 percent agreement between test scores for a 7- to 10-day interval between test administrations by the same tester. (3) Inter-rater reliability: for the standardization sample, percentage agreement between examiners and a criterion observer (inter-rater reliability) ranged from 92 to 98 percent.

Validity: No information available

Method of Scoring: The child’s responses are recorded as Pass or Fail on the score sheets. The responses are examined to see if they fall into or outside the normal expected range of success on that item for the child’s age (the child is either classified as normal range, suspect, or delayed).

Interpretability: The DDST-II scoring process, which is described in the screening manual, requires that the individual test items be interpreted before the entire test is interpreted. The individual items are classified as: Advanced, Normal, Caution, Delayed, and No Opportunity. The category descriptors for the entire test include: Normal, Abnormal, Questionable, and Untestable.

Training Support: It is suggested that screeners be properly trained and pass the proficiency test before using the DDST-II for clinical purposes. There is a two-day training workshop offered (and outlined in the technical manual).

Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities: None mentioned

Report Preparation Support: None mentioned

References:

Frankenburg, William K. and J.B. Dobbs. Denver Developmental Screening Test II-Screening Manual. Denver: Denver Developmental Materials, 1990.

Frankenburg, William K. and J.B. Dobbs. Denver Developmental Screening Test II-Technical Manual. Denver: Denver Developmental Materials, 1990.

Frankenburg, William K. and J.B. Dobbs. Denver Developmental Screening Test II- Training Videotape. Denver: Denver Developmental Materials, 1993.

Personal correspondence with Beverly Bresnick, DDST-II technical expert and trainer, July 10, 2002.