Subjective and Objective Assessment of Developmental Dysfunction in Children Aged 0–3 Years – Comparative Study

The development of a child is characterized by the serial changes as a result of which an adult organism is formed. There are many factors that could disrupt this process, so it is important to detect them as early as possible and focus on appropriate treatment and therapy. For this purpose, early and comprehensive diagnostics are necessary. Depending on the age of the child and the purpose of the physiotherapeutic examination, (1) methods based on a subjective feeling supported by knowledge and experience of a physiotherapist or doctor, and (2) objectified tests using measuring tools are used to assess the correctness of development. The aim of the work was (1) to compare the subjective efficacy (and thus those with a greater diagnostic error) and objective methods, and (2) to demonstrate the need to search for new diagnostic tools to estimate the measurable developmental deficits in young children from 0 to 3 years old. Diagnostic methods used during the assessment of the child’s development level and the level of its developmental disorders are presented in the tables, and in the place where it was possible, the value of the estimator of the method’s efficiency was given. The methods and scales of the child’s psychomotor development assessment listed in the tables clearly show that subjective tools are much more than objective methods, and their effectiveness expressed in reliability ranges from 0.76–0.98. The separate and combined use of the measuring methods are evaluated in this article.