How Do I Use the Developmental Standards?

How do the Developmental Standards work?

The Ounce Scale provides a structure for observing the growth and development of children from birth to three and a half years of age. It is structured around four basic domains of development:

1. Social and emotional (building trust, sense of self, relationships with others)
2. Language (receptive and expressive)
3. Cognitive (memory and problem solving)
4. Physical development (gross and fine motor, as well as self-help).

The Ounce Scale consists of three elements: the Observation Record, the Family Album, and the Developmental Profiles and Standards. The scale relies on the documented observations of child-care workers, teachers, or home visitors, as recorded in the Observation Records, along with the family's responses in the Family Albums. These observations are then matched to the descriptions given in the standards.

Use the Standards as a Guide

By using the standards as a guide for assessing development, caregivers can then match observed behaviors to established standards and make determinations about whether a child's growth is developing as expected or needing development. These standards present each specific skill, behavior, or accomplishment in the form of a one-sentence performance indicator, which also appears on the Developmental Profiles. Each indicator is followed by a rationale and by two sets of performance examples: developing as expected, or needing development.

The performance examples are intended to provide concrete examples of competent, skilled behavior for children of different ages. In other words, the examples describe very specific behaviors that illustrate a variety of ways in which children might demonstrate competence as described in the rationale. If the child is not performing at this level, then his or her behavior is considered to be in need of development. The examples do not exhaustively cover every child's behavior. Rather, they are intended to be guidelines that will help set a context for interpreting and evaluating a child's behaviors.

Overall, the Standards provide a means of evaluating very young children's growth and development in a manner that is strength-based, and in a context that is functional and oriented toward improving performance rather than describing failure. The Ounce Scale enhances both parent and caregiver knowledge by focusing their attention on what children are doing, what they might do differently, and what might happen next.