Pediatric Assessment Tools

Pediatricians have a wide variety of tools to assess the normal development of children, from their first months of life, up to late adolescence. Each tool is targeted to a specific age range and includes examination methods such as direct tests on kids or reports from parents on young children who are unable to express themselves. The list of individual assessment tools is seemingly endless. However, pediatric tools can be grouped according to the examination method preferred.

Questionnaires

• Doctors can't be with kids every day to form a complete picture of what problems they may face. That's why doctors often rely on parents' reports to assess children's smooth development. Parents do not have to provide specialized analysis on kids' issues; they only need to provide answers to simple questions by the doctor, such as how children react to sounds, behavioral issues and how energetic they are at home.

Checklist

• Doctors test children on a variety of issues, such as balance, standing, walking, heart rate, reflexes, eye movement and response to sounds and images. These tests take place in the doctor's office, or during a house visit and, according to the findings, the pediatrician fills in a checklist of what is normal on the kid's development and what parents must be more cautious about. Checklists also help prevent doctors from omitting examination of important child development issues.

Assessment Grid

• Most children are expected to be around a certain height or weight in specific stages of their development and doctors test children regularly to confirm their normal growth or identify why they do not follow suit. For this purpose, doctors use grids depicting the normal weight and height growth on the x and y axes and compare the kids' characteristics to the grid's data. Furthermore, doctors can evaluate the development of specific body parts, such as head and chest circumference.

Cognitive Development Items

• Doctors use a variety of sources to assess children's cognitive development, from parent questionnaires to direct test on kids, as well as reports from school. This data is used to form a complete picture from children's first months, up until school age. Since each individual assessment method is incomplete, pediatricians incorporate every means possible, to gather information on this issue. Afterwards, they break the findings in individual items, such as language skills, learning rules and social interactions and determine whether kids' cognitive development incorporates the desired number and level of items.