Developmental Delays in Children

Katlyn 

11/7/12

          Developmental delays in children can be very difficult to diagnose, especially at young ages, because people tend to think that the children will “catch up” with other children as they get older. IDEA, which is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, help to make early intervention and special education services available. IDEA’s definition of a developmental delay is: Child with a disability for children aged three through nine may include a child—

1. Who is experiencing developmental delays as defined by the State and as measured by                 appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures in one or more of the following areas: Physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, or adaptive development; and 

2. Who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services. (NICHCY, 2012)

             There are five major areas in which a child can have a developmental delay in. Those five areas are: social, cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, and language.Social delays can be considered any sort of interaction with another person, whether it be children their own age, strangers, or even family members. What also falls into this category is the ability to cooperate in the classroom, as well as in general. An example of a cognitive delay would be the inability for a child to understand certain things that were said or done. Also attached to cognitive delays would be the lack of ability to learn and retain what has been taught to them. The third form of delay is language, which is when a child has difficulties speaking and communicating with others, as well as being able to understand people. A personal example of this would be, my two and a half year old sister couldn’t form complete sentences or words by the time she was two, and she couldn’t completely say full words, even though she would know what they met. As a result, she began speech therapy in hopes of improving that. With time spent working on her speech, it’s now improved greatly and now, six months later, she’s able to say complete words and sentences. The fourth form of delay is fine motor delay, which has to do greatly with their hands. It is the inability to complete tasks like eating, drawing, or writing. The final form of delay is gross motor delay, which is when a child has a difficult time walking, keeping balance, or anything similar to those. 

             The reason why these delays can be so difficult to diagnose is due to the fact that some children just begin developing at different ages. No child is the same, and as a result, no child is going to develop at the same age as other children may have. By the time a child reaches it’s first birthday, they’re usually up and walking. However, some children may not walk until months after they’ve turned one. That’s why it’s such a difficult thing to diagnose in a child, even though, the earlier it’s diagnosed the better. 

        This is a chart of the typical milestones in children between the ages of 3 months to 3 years.

Resources:

My child without limits. (2009, November). Retrieved from http://www.mychildwithoutlimits.org/?page=developmental-delay

(2012). Retrieved from NICHCY website: http://nichcy.org/disability/specific/dd 

Katlyn Benson

Elena Rivera

Ronni Greenberg 

Anjali Lappin