How does the DTORF-R accommodate diversity and cultural differences among students, teachers, and parents?
The question of diversity and cultural bias is appropriately raised when selecting an instrument to assess the development of children and youth. A major reason for the wide-spread applicability of the DTORF-R is the freedom for a rating team to judge a student’s mastery of an item in the context of the expectations and values of the local program, community, and family. The DTORF-R has been used with thousands of troubled children and teens in the United States and internationally over a 25-year period. Field-based research on the effectiveness of the Developmental Therapy-Teaching approach, using the DTORF-R as the measure of progress, has included children of all ages, gender, race, personalities, socioeconomic levels, and geographic areas — both urban and rural. It has been used to assess the behavioral, social, communication, and cognitive competence of students with autism, intellectual delay; and language, hearing or visual disabilities. It has also been used to assess those wit
