The initial DSS consisted of 12 pages. Overall, pilot testing was done on 80 children before the DSS was finalized. Pilot testing was done in three phases.

Pilot 1 – the initial instrument was of 12 pages and had 4 sections. On major section was on development assessment of the child based on milestones in development. This schedule was administered on 20 children and on the basis of the results, section on development assessment which was too detailed was removed.

Pilot 2- Age related milestones were woven into the schedule. Revised schedule was administered on 30 children. The schedule now had three sections. Based on the performance of children, the questions needed re-sequencing, some questions needed to be asked only from older children, and some questions needed to be added for the 0-1 years age group.

Pilot 3- was done on 30 children. Again sequencing of questions neede modification, some more questions were needed for the 0-6 month age group and some questions were made close ended.

The DSS which emerged was a short proforma for screening disability in 0-6 year old children, which had the following features:

i) It was short and quick to administer

ii) Easy to understand by non-professional staff

iii) Cost of screening was minimal

iv) Test did not contain items unacceptable to the community

v) Many ‘at risk’ conditions were included in the DSS. This was to ensure that the test should neither miss cases of disease, nor diagnose a disease or disorder in a healthy child

vi) Since large scale surveys are expensive, having separate set of surveys for each disability is something which poor resource communities can’t afford. So, DSS was developed as a one time screening instrument for all major impairments and disabilities for all children between 0-6yrs.

The final screening tool, DISABILITY SCREENING SCHEDULE that emerged had 3 sections:

Section 1: Information obtained from parents of family and child’s medical and developmental history and current level of functioning.

Section 2: Physical examination of the child

Section 3: outcome of the screening test

The DSS hitherto developed is a broad based screening test for children below 6 years of age for detecting latent or early symptomatic stages of disorder or diseases which may lead to physical-motor, visual or hearing disability or mental retardation.

The DSS was validated and its specificity and sensitivity was calculated. It was subsequently used by a variety of community workers to screen disabilities in children below 6 years of age in community and the results are presented here.