Created for use in clinical settings, The Capute Scales are effective both as a screener for general practitioners and as an assessment tool for specialists such as developmental pediatricians, speech-language pathologists, and occupational therapists. With its high correlation with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, this standardized instrument will assist clinicians in making developmental diagnoses, counseling families, and guiding them to appropriate intervention services.
How can clinicians better diagnose developmental delays in young children?
The Capute Scales help differentiate between communicative and cognitive disorders. They are designed to help clinicians determine the presence of atypical development in two streams of cognitive development: visual-motor functioning and expressive and receptive language. The language battery of the test—CLAMS (Clinical Linguistic & Auditory Milestone Scale)—relies almost exclusively on parental history in the first 18 months of life and then on a combination of parental history and clinical observation. The visual-motor problem-solving battery—CAT (Cognitive Adaptive Test)—requires direct observation of a child performing specific test items during the assessment.
CLAMS was originally developed to provide pediatricians with a scale of linguistic and auditory milestones that can be rapidly applied within the constraints of a busy practice. CAT provides clinicians a means of distinguishing isolated language delays or communication disorders from more global cognitive impairments.
The complete system includes:
- Cognitive Adaptive Test (CAT), 58 items focused on visual-motor functioning
- Clinical Linguistic and Auditory Milestone Scales (CLAMS), 42 items focused on expressive and receptive language development
- 4-page scoring sheets
- Manual with an explanation of the scales' development, guidelines on administration and scoring, an overview of clinical and research use, and information on standardization of the scales and their use in other languages
- Test Kit, packed in a tote bag, with the standardized materials required to conduct the assessment
The Capute Scales were developed by Dr. Arnold J. Capute, the founding father of neurodevelopmental pediatrics, and have been tested and refined at the Kennedy Krieger Institute for more than 30 years.
Benefits
This standardized instrument will assist clinicians in:
- making developmental diagnoses
- counseling families
guiding them to appropriate intervention services
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