Milestones of Normal Development in Early Years (MONDEY)

Standardized inventories to monitor development from 0 - 3 years of age are rare in German speaking countries. The present report discusses criteria for evaluating corresponding tools and presents a new documentation program. MONDEY ( Pauen, 2011) includes a description of 111 milestones, each assigned to one of eight areas (i.e., gross and fine motor development, perception and cognition, language, social relations, self-regulation, and emotions). Together these eight areas are assumed to cover general development during early childhood. Structure equation models conducted with a pilot version (Pauen, 2008) confirm this hierarchical organization and lead to a surprisingly good model fit. Furthermore, general development correlates highly with children's age. Based on these findings we conclude that MONDEY shows high construct validity.