Perceived Efficacy and Goal Setting System (PEGS)

The PEGS asks a young child, in their own words, what they find hard and what they want to get better at. Most goal-setting for children this age happens between adults; the PEGS exists to put the child in the conversation.

The child works through pairs of picture cards showing everyday activities across self-care, school, and leisure — doing up buttons, printing letters, catching a ball. For each, they choose which picture is more like them, then rate how well they do it. Once the cards are done, the child picks the activities they most want to work on. Parallel questionnaires let a caregiver and a teacher rate the same activities, so three views can be compared.

• Missiuna et al. (2006), examination with children, parents, and teachers

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Learn More: The most useful finding from the validation work is the disagreement. Parents and teachers consistently rate children's abilities lower than the children rate themselves, and children with developmental coordination disorder prioritise different goals from the ones adults would choose for them. That gap is the point of administering all three forms rather than only the child's.