This paper offers insight into the development and the standardisation of the social-pediatric screening, SOPESS. The screening was developed for assessing children's developmental stages in the context of the health examination for school entry in North Rhine Westphalia. As the cutoff date regarding age, time of school entry has been rendered flexible, health examinations are due up to six months earlier than before. The screening's theoretical basis is described, its development and standardisation are presented, and its psychometric properties reported.

Society and education policy have led to significant changes for school starters. This not only concerns the lowering of school entry age but also the focus of health examinations for school entry on promotion-oriented diagnostics. This examination aims to evaluate the child's school readiness to ensure that from a (work-) medical point of view, the child will be able to meet the expected requirements at his/her future work place, namely, school. The present article demonstrates the consequences of the current requirements by discussing the example of the health examination for school entry in North Rhine-Westphalia. By focusing specifically on the assessment of the child's developmental status as one component of the health examinations for school entry, the effects of the changing conditions become visible. Aspects of health policy are shown considering "the new morbidity" and early preventive medical check-ups. Using the example of the assessment of developmental status the effects of the current requirements and the consequent need for a new concept of this particular component of the health examination for school entry are described.

In addition to general cognitive and motor skills, the social-pediatric screening of developmental status for school entry (SOPESS) provides subtests for assessing speech and language in a differentiated way. In a special validation study, these domains are correlated to coextensive scales of SETK 3-5. The SOPESS features high specificity and results in reliable true negative findings. In addition, a preliminary evaluation of language skills considering migrant background is given. Children with an unsatisfactory status of language competence are treated separately in the SOPESS.

The newly developed social paediatric screening of developmental status for school entry (SOPESS) comprises assessments in visuomotor coordination, selective attention, precursors of number and set comprehension as well as visual cognition and reasoning. In various validation studies, these domains are correlated to coextensive scales of well-established psychometric instruments. In addition, a preliminary evaluation of screener performance in terms of sensitivity, specificity and predictive capability is given. The SOPESS features high specificity and results in reliable true negative findings. In the intended field of application, a mild proneness to false positive findings is tolerable, and may also be attributed to a limited reliability of the criteria instuments in the lower ranges of performance.