Could Your Child Be Developmentally Delayed?

Deciphering developmental milestones and what to do when there is a delay

By Kevin Klein

Could Your Child Be Developmentally Delayed?

In this article:
Checking Developmental Milestones
Talking to Your Child's Doctor
Visiting the Specialists
Managing Problems

Continued from page 2

Visiting the Specialists

As in Declan's case, the referral from a general practitioner or pediatrician will usually include more than one specialist. The audiologist found that Declan's hearing was at the lowest level of the normal range; due to repeated ear infections, he has fluid in his middle ear that will require tubes to drain.

Hearing plays a significant role in children's development of language, especially in children up to three years, who fall into what the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders has termed the critical period for language development. The expectation is that Declan's language abilities will jump once his hearing improves; if they don't, however, there may be other problems preventing his development and further tests by other specialists (such as psychologists and neurologists) would be undertaken.

After the audiologist's testing, the speech pathologist did a developmental assessment on Declan and determined that his receptive language development was six-months delayed and his expressive speech was twelve-months delayed. The specialist recommended speech therapy every two weeks. After two months of therapy, Declan's vocabulary increased from two to 25 words.

Declan's story is turning out well so far, thanks to early and rapid intervention. His mother knew exactly what kind of assessments to expect and which treatments would be recommended depending on the results. However, for concerned parents who feel overwhelmed by a lack of understanding about their child's problems, specialist visits can be intimidating. The National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families has a website of information about young children's development (www.zerotothree.org), which includes a comprehensive guide for understanding and working with developmental assessments.

Managing Problems

While some developmental delays can be overcome through treatment, as in Declan's case, often the assessment of these delays can lead to the diagnosis of one of a range of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs), the most commonly known of which is autism. PDDs are often called Autism Spectrum Disorders because they are classified by the severity of the symptoms present. For example, autistic children have significant deficits in social interaction and communication and they tend to engage in repetitive behaviors such as rocking and stroking or tapping themselves. By comparison, children with Asperger's can use language much more effectively, although one symptom of Asperger's is a fixation on an object to the extent that the person speaks to others mainly about that object, regardless of social situation.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms of PDDs can be detected in children as early as from birth to one year. In terms of assessment and treatment, doctors will generally refer to a child psychologist or psychiatrist if a PDD is suspected. Treatment can help alleviate symptoms of PDDs (for the child as well as the child's family), but as the term "pervasive" suggests, these disorders cannot be outgrown or cured.