Washington, DC, August 28, 2025 (PAHO) – The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) today launched the Spanish version of a package of measures to monitor child development of up to 36 months of age. This tool provides a standardized method to perform early childhood evaluations, applicable in different cultures and contexts.
Global scales for early development (GSED) allow integral monitoring of young children, who cover cognitive, socio -emotional, language and motor skills. To achieve this, the GSED uses an innovative measurement parameter: the development score (D-SCore), which incorporates all the domains of child development on a common scale that translates into a single score.
Unlike growth, which is measured by weight in grams and height in centimeters, so far there has been no uniform scale to measure development during the first three years of life. The existing measures that were designed to monitor development in children after 24 months of age did not explain the diversity of contexts in which children grow and required significant resources for the implementation.
«The GSED tool marks a milestone to holistically evaluate the development of early childhood,» said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, director of Paho, in a video message during the package launch. «It provides common language within and among countries for the generation of evidence to guide policies, improve programs and services and guarantee responsibility,» he added.
The methodology was developed by a multidisciplinary team of experts coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and was presented this week for the region of the Americas in a virtual seminar coorganized by Paho and the Inter -American Development Bank (IDB). The experiences of the country that use GSED tools in research and public health practice stood out during the launch event.
«The translation of the Spanish GSED is the result of the joint work between the PAHO and the Inter -American Development Bank, reaffirming our commitment to regional collaboration and recognizing the development of early childhood not as a sectorial problem, but as a collective responsibility,» said Dr. Barbosa.
The GSED is open access and will facilitate the generation of data that will allow political leaders and governments to allocate resources more effectively towards programs and interventions that support children with the greatest risk of not reaching their maximum development potential.
To date, the GSED measures have been validated in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the United Republic of Tanzania (1,248 children per country), and data collection is underway in Brazil, Chile, China, Ivory Coast and the Netherlands.
The current GSED package includes various materials: short and long forms, user manuals and application guides, rating, translation and adaptation guides. It also contains a technical report that explains the methodology used and the results of its validation. In addition, a GSED digital application is available. This instrument will continue to be refined, and once again data is collected, an expanded version will be launched that incorporates international standards and standards on child development.
