This panel presentation presents results of an assessment study of the reliability, validity, and utility of caregivers' reports on: (1) the behavioral competencies of severely handicapped children, and (2) the adaptive and intellectual behaviors of moderately handicapped children. The Kent Infant Development (KID) Scale (used with severely and profoundly handicapped children) and the Minnesota Child Development Inventory (MCDI) (used with moderately handicapped children in a parallel matrix of testing) were studied. The KID Scale elicits caregiver responses on child competencies in five areas: cognitive, motor, language, self-help, and social. Data are used for computer-generated profiles, including developmental timetables that indicate which milestones have been acquired and which milestones should be acquired next. Analysis of KID's reliability indicates adequate interjudge and test-retest reliability. Studies on the test's validity established concurrent validity with the Bayley Scale of Infant Development and substantiated the validity of caregiver reports. The scale's utility is discussed, and its prescriptions for programming are emphasized. The MCDI uses the mother's observations to measure development in eight areas: general, gross motor, fine motor, expressive language, comprehension-conceptual, situation comprehension, self-help, and personal-social. In this study, the instrument was completed by both home and educational caregivers and results were compared with the Stanford Binet Mental Age measure for 93 moderately retarded primary school children. Results indicated that the General Developmental scale of the MCDI was the best measure of Developmental Age in terms of reliability and validity, had the highest interjudge correlation, and had the highest correlation with the Stanford Binet Mental Age. (CL)