Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention

This scale aims to be a minimally invasive self-rating measure to assess pubertal status, without using pictorial representations, interviews or physical examinations. The scale was proposed by Carskadon and Acebo (1993) consisting on the conversion to self-report format of the interview-based Pubertal Development Scale (PDS) described in Peterson et al. (1988), based on Tanner stages. The SSPD is a brief self-rating scale for children from 9 years old. It comprises 5 items: 1 to 3 are common to both sexes, whereas 4 and 5 are unique for each sex.Each item is rated in a 4-point Likert scale from 1 to 4, except for the menarche item in the girl’s version (scored 1 or 4). A global score is computed separately for boys and girls according to an algorithm described by Petersen et al. (1988), cf. e.g., http://www.sleepforscience.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/91.The global score, depending on the participant sex, would correspond to one of the Tanner puberty stages: Prepubertal; Early pubertal; Midpubertal; Late pubertal; Postpubertal.