Phase 3 Achievement
Executive function, academics, social skills. The outcomes everyone sees, and the ones that depend on everything below.
The model behind the tool
Foundation first. Then organization. Then achievement.
Most assessments report what a child cannot do. The Developmental Pathways Model® asks why, tracing observable challenges back through the developmental hierarchy to find where the foundation needs support.
Phase 2 Organization
Praxis, bilateral integration, timing and sequencing. The bridge between sensing the world and acting on it.
Phase 1 Foundation
Regulation, sensory modulation and postural control. If the foundation is unstable, higher-level skills cannot be securely built.
Why the order matters
A child who melts down during handwriting is not having a handwriting problem. The DLP reads the hierarchy from the bottom up, so the report and the goals start where the child's capacity actually gives way, usually earlier than the behavior that got them referred.
The DLP scores 71 domains across the three phases from two instruments: a caregiver questionnaire and your own structured observations.
Four colors, one language for therapists and families
Every domain in the profile lands in one of four colors. Parents learn them in a minute. Clinicians use them to decide where to start.
Green
Well supported and integrated. A strength the child can lean on.
Yellow
Mild vulnerability. Skills are present but inconsistent.
Orange
Moderate challenge. Function is possible but effortful.
Red
High stress, limited access. The child is in survival mode in this domain.
When several indicators in one domain cluster at the same level, the profile shifts that domain up a level, so a pattern of small signals is not read as a small problem.
Maude Le Roux, OTR/L
Creator of the Developmental Pathways Model®. Founder of A Total Approach.
Maude opened her practice, A Total Approach, in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania in 2001. She began training therapists in 2007 and opened her online academy in 2019. She designed the Developmental Pathways Model® and applies it to her own assessment and intervention protocols for dyspraxia, ADHD and executive function, autism, reading and writing disorders, and trauma and attachment.
She served nine years on the Board of Directors of ATTACH and now sits on its Advisory Board, and on the Advisory Board for LSWorks. She co-authored two books and wrote the chapter on trauma and the body in Healing Connections (2024). In 2024 she received ATTACH's award for continued child advocacy and ICDL's Champion Award.
Equipping the child while empowering the parent is at the core of who she is as a clinician and trainer. The DLP is the digital expression of that work.
How therapists use it
- Alongside standardized, normed assessments, to show the findings with visual clarity.
- When time is short, as a starting point for intervention.
- As a screening step to decide what to evaluate next.
- Before and after an intervention program.
The DLP does not diagnose and does not replace a hands-on evaluation.