Child's Attainment of Developmental Milestone Rating Scale

Parent Rating Scale - To be used to monitor progress in early intervention program

(Material for this scale came from Chapter 5, pp 91-97 of The Child with Special Needs by Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D. & Serena Wieder, Ph.D., Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1998.)

Name of Child
Date of Rating

Directions: Determine which milestones the child has mastered and which still needs to work on. The abilities that signal mastery of each milestone are listed on the left. Use the rating scale to rate the child in each one as the child is the day of the rating. If the skill is always present, record at what age it was mastered.

Rating Scale:

N = ability never present
S = ability sometimes present
A = ability always present
L = Child loses ability under stress (hunger, anger, fatigue, etc.)

Child's Ability	N S A L	Age Mastered
Milestone 1: Self-regulation and Interest in the World
1. Shows interest in different sensations for 3+ seconds
2. Remains calm and focused for 2 + minutes
3. Recovers from distress within 20 minutes with help from you
4. Shows interest in you (i.e., not only in inanimate objects)
Milestone 2: Intimacy
1. Responds to your overtures(with a smile, frown, reach, vocalization, or other intentional behavior.
2. Responds to your overtures with obvious pleasure
3. Responds to your overtures with curiosity and assertive interest (e.g., by studying your face)
4. Anticipates an object that was shown and then removed (e.g., smiles or babbles to show interest
5. Becomes displeased when you are unresponsive during play for 30 seconds or longer
6. Protests and grows angry when frustrated
7. Recovers from distress within 15 minutes with your help
Milestone 3: Two Way Communication
1. Responds to your gestures with intentional gestures (e.g., reaches out in response to your outstretched arms, returns your vocalization or look
2. Initiates interactions with you (e.g., reaches for your nose or hair or for a toy, raises arms to be picked up
3. Demonstrates the following emotions: Closeness (e.g., by hugging back when hugged, reaching out to be picked up)
Pleasure & excitement (e.g., by smiling joyfully while putting finger in your mouth and putting it in child's own
Assertive curiosity (e.g., by touching and exploring your hair)
Protest or anger (e.g., by pushing food off table or screaming when desired toy not brought)
Fear (e.g., by turning away, looking scared or crying when a stranger approaches too quickly
4. Recovers from distress within 10 minutes by being involved in social interactions
Milestone 4: Complex Communication
1. Closes 10 or more circles of communication in a row (e.g., takes you by hand, walks you to refrigerator, points, vocalizes, responds to your questions with more noise and gestures, and continues gestural exchange until you open the door to get what the child wants
2. Imitates your behavior in an intentional way (e.g., puts on a hat, then parades around room looking for admiration)
3. Closes 10 or more circles using vocalizations or words
facial expressions
reciprocal touching or holding
movement in space (e.g., roughhousing)
large motor activity (e.g., chase games, climbing games)
communication across space (e.g., can close 10 circles with you from across the room
4. Closes three or more circles in a row while feeling the following emotions: Closeness (e.g., uses facial expression, gestures, and vocalizations to reach out for a hug, kiss or cuddle, or uses imitation, such as talking on toy phone while you are using a real phone)
Pleasure and excitement (uses looks and vocalizations to invite another person to share excitement over something: shares"Jokes" with other children or adults by laughing together at some provocation)
Assertive curiosity (explores independently; uses ability to communicate across space to feel close to you while exploring or playing on own)
Anger (deliberately hits, pinches, yells, bangs, screams, or lies on floor to demonstrate anger; occasionally uses cold or angry looks instead)
Limit setting (understands and respond to your limits whether expressed through words - "No, stop that!" - or gestures - shaking finger, angry face)
5. Uses imitation to deal with and recover from distress (e.g., bangs on floor and yells after being yelled at)
Milestone 5: Emotional Ideas
1. Creates pretend dreams with two or more ideas (e.g., trucks crash then pick up rocks, dolls hug then have a tea party; ideas need not relate)
2. Uses words, pictures, gestures to convey two or more ideas at a time (e.g., "No sleep. Play"); ideas need not be related
3. Communicates wishes, intentions and feelings using: words
multiple gestures in a row
touch (e.g., lots of hugging or roughhousing)
4. Plays simple motor games with rules (e.g., taking turns throwing ball)
5. Uses pretend play or words to communicate the following emotions while expressing two or more ideas: Closeness (e.g., has doll say: "Hug me." then child answers: "I give you kiss.")
Pleasure and excitement (e.g., makes funny words then laughs)
Assertive curiosity (e.g., makes pretend airplane zoom around room, then says its's going to the moon)
Fear (e.g. stages drama in which doll is afraid of loud noise then call for mother)
Anger (e.g., has soldiers shoot guns at one another then fall down)
Limit setting (e.g., has dolls follow rules at tea party)
6. Uses pretend play to recover from and deal with distress (e.g., plays out eating the cookie the child couldn't really have)
Milestone 6: Emotional Thinking
1. In pretend play, two or more ideas are logically tied together, even if the ideas themselves are unrealistic (e.g., the car is visiting the moon and gets there by flying fast)
2. Builds on adult's pretend play idea (e.g., child is cooking soup, adult asks what's in it, child answers, "Rocks and dirt.")
3. In speech, connects ideas logically; ideas are grounded in reality (e.g., "No go sleep. Want to watch television.")
4. Closes two or more verbal circles of communication (e.g., "Want to go outside";adult asks, "Why?" "To play.")
5. Communicates logically, connecting two or more ideas about intentions, wishes, needs, or feelings using: words
multiple gestures in a row (e.g., pretending to be an angry dog)
touch (e.g., lots of hugging as part of pretend drama in which child is the daddy)
6. Plays spatial and motor games with rules (e.g., taking turns going down a slide)
7. Uses pretend play or words to communicate two or more logically connected ideas dealing with the following emotions: Closeness (e.g., doll gets hurt and Mommy fixes it.)
Pleasure and excitement (e.g., says bathroom words, such as "doody," and laughs)
Assertive curiosity (e.g., good soldiers search for missing princess)
Fear (e.g., monster scares baby doll)
Anger (e.g., good soldiers fight bad ones)
Limit setting (e.g., soldiers can hit only bad guys because of the rules)
8. Uses pretend play that has a logical sequence of ideas to recover from distress, often suggesting way of coping with the distress (e.g., the child becomes the teacher, bossing the class)

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