Authors:
Gerald Alpern, Thomas Boll, and Marsha Shearer

Publisher:
Western Psychological Services
(800) 648-8857
www.wpspublish.com

Initial Material Cost:
Developmental Profile II Complete Kit: $120 (includes Examiner’s Manual and 25 Scoring/Profile forms)

Representativeness of Norming Sample:
Not nationally representative and not representative of rural populations. Normed on a sample of normally developed children between birth and 12 _ years from the states of Indiana and Washington and primarily from urban areas. Minorities other than African Americans are under-represented.

Languages:
English

Type of Assessment:
Direct child assessment and/or parent report

Age Range and Administration Interval:
Birth through 7 years for normal children and for handicapped children of any age when their skills are not expected to extend beyond the 9 _ year ceiling.

Personnel, Training, Administration, and Scoring Requirements:
A person with brief training can administer this test in 20 to 40 minutes. Training requires familiarizing oneself with the manual and questionnaires. Scoring takes about 5 minutes. However, the ultimate responsibility for its use and interpretation should be assumed by a professional with clinical training.

Summary
Initial Material Cost: 2 ($100 to $200)
Reliability: 3 (.65 or higher)
Validity: 2 (under .5 for concurrent)
Norming Sample Characteristics: 2 (not nationally representative)
Ease of Administration and Scoring: 2 (administered and scored by someone with basic clerical skills)

Description: The Developmental Profile II is a comprehensive assessment of motor, language, personal/self-help, social, and intellectual development for children from birth through 9 _ years. The format is a 186-item inventory designed to assess a child’s functional, developmental age level. Three methods of administration are available: (1) a Scoring/Profile Form in which the examiner marks the responses and computes and profiles the child’s scores; (2) on-line administration and scoring; and (3) a mail-in, computer-readable answer sheet. There are 13 age groupings, with approximately 15 items per age group (3 items per scale times 5 scales) each. The test may be administered either in interview format to the parent, as a combination of parent interview and direct testing of the child, or as a self-interview completed by a teacher. The examiner’s job is to establish a baseline and ceiling developmental age for each of five areas: physical age, self-help age, social age, academic age, and communication age.

Uses of Information: The primary uses of the results of the Developmental Profile II are (1) to determine eligibility for receiving special education and/or related services; (2) as a planning tool to develop an individualized educational program consistent with the child’s strengths and deficits; (3) to measure the child’s progress by comparing profile scores at the beginning of the school year (pretest) with scores achieved at the end of the school year (post-test); and (4) to evaluate an entire educational program or service by comparing the average pretest scores of a group of children with the average posttest scores of the same group.

Reliability: (1) Internal consistency reliability: alpha coefficients for each of the five scales were .79 for physical; .78 for self-help; .82 for social, .87 for academic, and .83 for communication. (2) Test-retest reliability (with intervals of 2 to 3 days): scores were identical for 22 percent of the children; 50 percent of the scores were within 1 item of each other; 68 percent were within 2 items of each other; and 92 percent were within 3 items of each other. (3) Inter-rater reliability: 35 teachers independently scored a mother’s response to relevant items. Of the 35 teachers, 25 had identical scores, an additional 5 teachers were within one item, and all 35 were within two items of the model score.

Validity: (1) Concurrent validity: correlation coefficients between the Developmental Profile II and the Stanford-Binet ranged from .45 for the Physical Scale and .76 for the Academic Scale. Correlation coefficients between the Developmental Profile II and the Learning Accomplishment Profile (LAP) ranged from .07 to .48 for the Gross Motor Scale. (2) Predictive validity: no information available. (3) Content validity: literature and existing measures were surveyed to identify developmental skills. In order to develop the items in the Profile, a group of teachers that work with handicapped children used the instrument and provided feedback on the instrument’s clarity and usefulness for designing and evaluating instructional interventions. An item analysis was used to insure that items were asked in an age appropriate context. Parents generally provided accurate information about their children’s performance. When parental report differed from teacher report or direct assessment of children, parents tended to overestimate their children’s skills.

Method of Scoring: The child’s general behavior, grade or school placement, and any other pertinent information available should be taken into consideration along with the child’s chronological age to determine where in the Profile to begin testing. Items are scored as either “pass” or “fail” depending on whether the child has the skill described. If an item is passed, the number in the Pass column is circled; if the item is failed, the zero in the Fail column is circled. A basal credit is established when all skills at two consecutive levels are mastered. Then, an additional credit is computed, which is the sum of the months earned over and above the basal credit (the sum of all the numbers in the Pass column higher than the level of the basal credit). The basal credit and additional credit are summed to obtain the scale age in months. By subtracting the chronological age from the scale age, the months differential can be computed. A ceiling developmental age (all items are failed on two consecutive age levels) is also established. If a ceiling level is obtained, an IQ Equivalency Score can also be computed for the child. Additionally, the inventory can be administered and scored on-line.

Interpretability: Complete interpretation of the scales requires comparison of scores to those of the normative sample, assessment of individual strengths and weaknesses, and examination of individual item responses. A child’s developmental age in each area can be compared to his or her chronological age. If the child’s developmental age is higher than the chronological age, the difference will be positive, indicating that the child may be “advanced” in that skill area. If the opposite is true, the difference will be negative, indicating that the child may be “delayed” in that skill area. A child’s developmental age can also be compared to other children to determine whether observed differences between chronological age and developmental age are important. A child’s developmental age can also be used to determine the seriousness of a delay. Case studies are included as examples.

Training Support: None

Adaptations/Special Instructions for Individuals with Disabilities: The instrument may be used with handicapped children of any age when their skills are not expected to extend beyond the 9 1/2year ceiling. Additionally, there is a case study of a child with suspected hearing loss.

Report Preparation Support:
Communication of test results to parents should focus on the interpretation of the results and their implications rather than reporting specific scores. There is a brief description of a sample Developmental Profile II test report in the manual.

References:

Alpern, Gerald, Thomas Boll, and Marsha Shearer. Developmental Profile II Manual. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services, 2000.