The Dortmund Preschool Developmental Screening (DESK 3-6)

The Dortmund Preschool Developmental Screening (DESK 3-6) has been developed for the early diagnosis of developmental risk in 3- to 6-year-olds. Two main goals in its construction were to ensure ease of application in preschools and reliable ratings of developmental tasks by preschool teachers. The screening is available in three different versions for 3-,4-, and 5- and 6-year-olds. Each version contains developmental items covering four domains (fine-motor development, gross-motor development, language and cognition, social development) that the majority of children who are developing normally can master at this age. Items are either observation tasks that preschool teachers can judge reliably through their daily contact with the child, or implementation tasks that the teacher has to carry out actively. Implementation tasks are embedded within a play action framework that allows teachers to test them in groups of children. Our study with 1639 preschoolers showed that the DESK 3-6 was well-received by both preschool teachers and parents and was easy to integrate into daily preschool routines. First indications regarding its validity are that it discriminated between children whose development was at risk according to preschool teachers and children already receiving an additional intervention.