Diagnosing Developmental Delays
"To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons."
—Marilyn French
Today newborns are examined in the hospital or birthing center for potential problems. If there aren't any, the parents head home for the long adventure of raising her. As she grows, they periodically take her into the doctor's office for well-baby checkups or the usual childhood colds and fevers.
If everything else is going along well and there are no major, obvious physical problems in the first three months, parents need not worry. Babies grow at very different rates. However, doctors and child care specialists increasingly focus on uncovering several potential problem areas:
Functional skills, which are basic skills in different areas of child development that most children have developed by a specific age period. If a child has not developed a skill by the age period when most children have, the child would be considered to have a developmental delay.
Potential behavior problems. These are child behaviors, or the absence of child behaviors, that occur during a specific time period that may interfere with a child's functioning or ability to get along well with others.
Problematic medical, birth and family conditions. These are conditions that are known through research and clinical experience to put a child at risk for life problems or disabilities.
While parents shouldn't worry about their child's development simply because a friend's baby got his teeth three months earlier than their child, or because the other child crawled earlier, or talked in full sentences earlier, or in any other way was simply growing at a different rate. Nevertheless, the early years are crucial because they set the stage for the rest of life. It's important to get a diagnosis as soon as possible in order to begin early treatment when there is a definite developmental delay, which provides the greatest chance for making a difference in a child's life down the road.
If parents aren't sure about their child's development, when is it time to sit back and let the child continue to grow at his own pace, and when should the child be evaluated by a specialist?. Is a child just "quirky," which the sidebar discusses, or is there really a developmental disorder?
These are important questions, which is why I encourage parents to use an online diagnostic tool created by The Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC). The center was founded in 1974 by Kerby T. Alvy, Ph.D., and has grown to be one of the most respected and influential parenting and parenting education organizations in the United States. Many of its parenting programs are considered national models, and over two million parents have become more effective and peaceful in raising children as a result of participating in CICC programs.
The CICC Discovery Tool includes a series of eleven age-specific questionnaires that inquire about a young child's developing skills, problem behaviors, medical conditions and early life experiences. Then the Tool lets the parent or other caregiver know whether there might be problems and where to turn to solve them. It also explains what a "special need" is and educates parents on how best to cope with children who have special needs and whose behavior is hard to handle.
Research on the CICC Discovery Tool has shown that about seven out of ten times when the Tool indicated that a child may have special needs, the Tool was correct. That is, when children whom the Tool indicated may have special needs were examined by a licensed psychologist, seven out of ten of those children were found to have special needs that required professional treatment.
In addition, research indicated that when a child was developing well, the Tool was also correct approximately seven out of ten times. Again, this was determined by comparing the results of the Tool with an evaluation by a licensed psychologist.
Using the CICC Discovery Tool
This online program begins by asking questions about a child's skills, behavior and background. The questions, which should be answered by someone who knows the child well, are about how:
A child moves his or her body
Uses his or her senses
Talks and gets along with others
Uses language
Learns and thinks
Takes care of him or herself
There are different sets of questions for young children. The questions about the development of newborns to three months of age only inquire about family background, since an infant's growth is not yet ready to be looked at in detail. Then there are questions for children up to about four years of age.
After answering the questions, Results Pages show how the child is doing compared to children the same age. These pages give a profile, or picture, of the child's growth. This profile can be printed and shared with family members, friends, doctors and teachers.
Then, the Tool connects you to the people and places that can help, as well as connecting you to parenting programs and books and videos.
By using the Tool, which takes about ten minutes, and costs a few dollars, you can get a discount on those books and videos.
CICC will not share any of the information that is given about a child or about the person who answers the questions.
What is learned from using the CICC Discovery Tool can change any child's life for the better!
SIDEBAR TO ABOVE ARTICLE:
Quirky Kids
One of the best books I've read about diagnosing development delays is written by two female doctors, Perri Klass, MD, and Eileen Costello, MD. Quirky Kids: Understanding and Helping Your Child Who Doesn't Fit In — When to Worry and When Not to Worry is a great book for parents who are worried about their child.
Here are some quotations from the book that can give you a sense of their perspective.
"All children have bad hours and bad days and even bad weeks. Many children have difficult developmental stages or particular developmental tasks that they find frustrating and even miserable. Many parents who find themselves sufficiently and persistently worried enough to request diagnostic workups and medical and developmental evaluations end up looking back on something that turns out to be nothing more than a difficult episode in an otherwise straightforward childhood. A persistent worry doesn't tell you what the end result is going to be, but it does signal a need to pay attention and ask the right questions.
". . . Children develop in many directions at once. Developmentally speaking, some kids are "motor machines' who roll, sit, crawl, and walk early, yet their language skills lag. Other babies happily sit in one place and babble away. It's as if some of them can't do both at the same time. When you look at your child, look not just at gross and fine motor skills but also at cognitive skills, at communication, at talking and understanding. Look at social skills and personality; does your child cry and act up around strangers but talk and laugh with people he knows? A child who is doing fine in most respect but has one particular area of difficulty is not as worrisome as a child who seems to struggle on several fronts. Even if you have a specific worry that you want to pursue, it's important for your sense of your child to keep all these developmental trajectories in mind and to recognize the many different kinds of progress, wherever they occur.
"Even as you pursue your worries into a world of diagnosis and testing, don't let yourself reduce your child to a symptom, a problem, a set of missed milestones. Look at the whole child, with all his strengths and weaknesses, preferences and quirks, and find as many ways as you can to cherish the days of his childhood. We don't mean to minimize the seriousness of your concerns or the pain that comes with worrying about a child, but it's also true that everyone gets only one childhood, one family, one set of parents. Look for ways to enjoy and appreciate the child you have, even as you are looking for answers and help."
I strongly recommend Quirky Kids because it helps clear up many of the confusing terms often applied to quirky children, such as "Asperger's syndrome," "nonverbal learning disability," "obsessive-compulsive disorder," and "sensory integration dysfunction." In addition, the authors discuss therapy options, coping strategies, and medications. Most of all, as the jacket cover notes, the authors "will help quirky kids lead rich, fulfilling lives at home, at school, even on the playground."