Children Development Scale DSR Plus  designed to assess the current level of development in children between 2 months and 3 years of age is a modified version of the Children Development Scale DSR  created in 2007.

Examination with the DSR Plus allows to assess the current level of development and to point out the child’s strong and weak points. This enables to detect early symptoms of development disorders, to identify domains responsible for underdevelopment as well as stimulation needs. The DSR Plus also provides information about important features of the child’s temperament. The tool includes two separate scales: Executive Scale (being a modified version of the scale developed in 2007) and the Observation Scale (which remains unchanged in relation to the 2007 version).

Examination with the 2007 Executive Scale (ES) provided two kinds of scores: the general score being a total of points on the whole ES and informing about a current level of a child’s development as well as scores in each of the 10 separate tests. The reason for developing a new version of the DSR was to create new scales measuring psycho-motor functioning in small children. This was done by subsuming all the tasks not, as before, to the 10 tests but to scales related to the main areas of development.

Thanks to modifications introduced into the DSR the tool allows now to assess the current development level in children aged 0–3 years in its three main areas: linguistic, motor and cognitive. Given the new indices now included in the DSR Plus the way scores are calculated and interpreted is entirely different from the one used in the 2007 version of the DSR. In consequence, the new manual is necessary to apply the DSR Plus (Fecenec, D., Wujcik, R. (2021). DSR Plus Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa. Podręcznik. Warszawa: Pracownia Testów Psychologicznych Polskiego Towarzystwa Psychologicznego).

Despite the introduction of new methods to calculate and interpret scores the former number and content of test tasks were retained. From the user’s point of view this means primarily that the examination procedure remains unchanged and still applies the division into 10 tests included in the Executive Scale. Thus the instruction released in 2007 remains the valid source of knowledge about the procedure itself and the rules to assess the examinee’s performance. The instruction contains not only the administration rules but also detailed instructions and rules for assessing successive tasks presented to the child.

The examination with the Executive Scale should be complemented with the one using the Observation Scale. This latter is designed to measure nine features of the child’s temperament grouped in four factors: Vitality, Adaptability, Rhythmicity and Sensibility. The scale allows to assess the child’s temperamental capabilities related to stimulus processing as well as temperamental indicators of development, reaction to novelties and tolerating frustration. The Observation Scale remains unchanged in relation to its 2007 version. The only change refers to the layout which makes the scale more convenient and user-friendly.

Advantages of the DSR Plus

With the DSR Plus a psychologist assessing the early development of a child gains new diagnostic opportunities unavailable in the 2007 version of the DSR.

The Executive Scale in the DSR Plus allows to:

• assess the development level in its three main aspects: speech and communication, motor skills, cognition,
• separately assess motoric efficiency of a hand (manipulation) as well as control over body position and the general physical ability (large motor skills),
• separately assess the development level of passive and active speech,
• assess general development level by means of an index in the form of deviation quotient,
• describe development achievements of a child in relation to his/her age and referring to: passive and active speech, large motor skills, manipulation and cognitive functioning (action schemes acquisition, perception, attention, short-term memory, imaginative thinking).

Materials:

• Kit (the new manual: DSR Plus Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa (2021), the former manual: DSR Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa (2007), DSR Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa. Instrukcja (2007), DSR Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa. Aneks; instruction video, test aids in a bag, DSR Plus Executive Scale sheet (25 cop.), DSR Plus Observation Scale sheet (25 cop.).
• DSR Plus Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa manual (2021) – contains theoretical foundations of scales and subscales of the DSR Plus, rules for scores calculation and interpretation, a description of the test’s psychometric features (reliability, validity, standardization) as well as tables of norms for all the indices of the DSR Plus Executive Scale and Observation Scale. Attention! This manual refers to the method of interpreting scores based on the division of the Executive Scale into scales related to the three development areas (speech and communication, motor skills, cognition)
• DSR Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa manual (2007) – contains the history of the tool development, theoretical foundations of the DSR, a description of 10 tests making up the Executive Scale and of items included in the Observation Scale; psychometric features of both scales, a traditional identification of difficulties in test items and tables of norms. Attention! This manual refers to the method of interpreting scores based on the division of the Executive Scale into 10 tests.
• DSR Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa. Instrukcja (2007) – contains a detailed description of the examination procedure and rules for the performance of test tasks. Attention! This instruction is necessary for the administration of the DSR Children Development Scale and is binding for both the users applying rules of scores calculation and interpretation included in the 2021 DSR Plus manual and those included in the 2007 manual.
• DSR Dziecięca Skala Rozwojowa. Skala Wykonaniowa. Trafność prognostyczna DSR, Aneks (2008): prognostic validity assessed by means of the correlation between DSR scores, scores on Raven’s Color Progressive Matrices and scores on Columbia Mental Maturity Scale collected 18 months after the DSR examination; longitudinal research on 6, 9 and 12-month-old infants (compared scores on three development scales: DSR, Brunet-Lezine and Psyche Cattell. In the Appendix examples can also be found of how apply the DSR in psychological practice.  
• Test aids (in a bag). A set of all aids necessary for test administration.
• Instruction video. A recorded examination using all the DSR tests and facilitating the learning of how to use the test.
• DSR Plus Executive Scale sheet (25 copies)
• DSR Executive Scale sheet (25 copies)
• DSR Observation Scale sheet (25 copies)