The construction and validation of developmental scales for environmentally disadvantaged preschool children

This article reports on the development and validation of a set of developm ental scales for environmentally disadvantaged pre-school children. Designe d to be culturally appropriate and child-friendly, they were intended to id entify cognitive and motor developmental problems that were commonly experi enced by such children and that were impeding their progress at school. Acc eptably high indices of test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability were found. Satisfactory indices of concurrent and construct validity have been obtained. Factor analyses yielded one general factor that was interpr eted as a cognitive performance factor. The finding that developmentally st imulated children performed substantially better than unstimulated children on these scales not only supported the scales' construct validity but also necessitated the development of separate norms for children from such diff erent backgrounds.