Standardization of the Denver Developmental Screening Test for children in Seoul: a validity study

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of the Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) for Korean children and to develop a Korean version reflecting the developmental characteristics of children in Seoul. Methods: The DDST was administered to 2,140 children, aged 2 weeks to 6 years and 4 months, in Seoul between July 1985 and September 1986. Participants were recruited from the pediatric departments and counseling centers of several hospitals, excluding those with conditions affecting development. Certain test items were aligned with the Korean context. Inter-examiner reliability was evaluated based on 32 children, while validity was assessed with 30 children using standard developmental scales. The Probit method was employed for statistical analysis. Results: Children from Seoul exhibited more rapid development than their counterparts in Denver and Tokyo across all four developmental domains: personal-social, fine motor-adaptive, language, and gross motor. Specifically, Korean children displayed earlier development for 10 items within the personal-social domain, eight within fine motor-adaptive, seven in language, and seven in the gross motor domain. This advanced development was consistent across age groups. Inter-examiner reliability averaged 97.3%, and validity tests demonstrated high concordance with established developmental scales. Conclusion: The rapid development of Korean children may be attributed to close attention paid by parents and early exposure to educational materials. However, the potential role of genetic differences cannot be denied. The occupational distribution of the fathers in the sample did not differ significantly from that of the Seoul population; thus, these findings were applied to establish a standardized Korean DDST.