# Turning milestones into measurement

Children learn to walk, speak, and think at an astonishing pace. The D-score captures this process as a one-number summary. The D-score book explains why we need the D-score, how we construct it, and how we calculate it. Application of the D-score enables comparisons in child development across populations, groups and individuals.

We are preparing four D-score book chapters under the following titles:

This chapter is written by Stef van Buuren and Iris Eekhout, with contributions from Marrianne de Wolff to Section 1, Manon Grevinga to Section 8, Paula van Dommelen to Section 9, and Maria C. Olthof to Section 9.

Chapter I and Chapter II are currently available as a complete draft. We still need to write most of Chapter III and IV. The series addresses conceptual aspects of the D-score, discusses practical issues, and introduces a dedicated set of R packages.

The Health Birth Growth and Development knowledge integration (ki) program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation kindly supports the work.