The Guides to Social Policy Law is a collection of publications designed to assist decision makers administering social policy law. The information contained in this publication is intended only as a guide to relevant legislation/policy. The information is accurate as at the date listed at the bottom of the page, but may be subject to change. To discuss individual circumstances please contact Services Australia.

1.1.W.20 Weighting for developmental milestones (CA (child), CP (child))

Definition

For the purposes of CA (child) and CP (child), weighting for developmental milestones (1.1.D.130) refers to a process in which raw scores obtained from the DCLA professional questionnaire are adjusted to account for imbalances.

The raw score (1.1.R.10) is multiplied by an appropriate weighting to reflect different deviations from the standard across different functional domains (1.1.F.280).

Note: Hygiene and grooming, and body movement have a weighting of 10/9. The other developmentally-linked scores have no weighting.

Explanation: Weighting for developmental milestones is applied because the functional domains are not all associated with the same number of developmental milestones. Medical experts believe that a deviation from the standard within a functional domain with only 9 developmental milestones has a greater impact than a similar deviation within a functional category that has 10.

Example: The categories of hygiene and grooming, and body movement each have 9 milestones, compared with 10 for the other domains.

Act reference: Disability Care Load Assessment (Child) Determination 2020 Schedule 1 Part 2 Professional questionnaire, Schedule 2 Part 2 Scoring for professional questionnaire

Policy reference: SS Guide 3.6.12 Disability Care Load Assessment (Child) (DCLA)

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