Harmonic Scale of Development: a proposal of integration by which to assess child development

Professionals interested in the area of psychological assessment are becoming increasingly sensitive towards the need for instruments capable of integrating the systemic and epigenetic character of the developmental process into its design. Most of the proposals put forward in recent decades coincide in considering developmental change as the result of a complex network of transactions between the subject and its developmental contexts at different levels. The Scale of Harmonic Development combines elements sensitive to the dynamism of the ontogenetic process: areas and functions of development which experience generative tensions of quantitative and qualitative change across different levels and stages. These stages, understood as "attractor states -a key concept in the Self-organizing Dynamic Systems Theory-, lose rigidity and integrate variability. The scale provides variables which allow the quantitative dimension (the Average Development Quotient) and the quality of the process of development (the Index of Harmony) to be dealt with at the same time. Initial trials reveal their usefulness as a screening test to serve in child development prevention.