Early Developmental Delays

Assessment of developmental milestones and the relative meaning of delays are not always clear. Some clinicians may consider a delay to simply represent a developmental lag and others may view the delay as central nervous system pathology that may resolve or subsequently manifest differently with aging of the Central Nervous System (CNS). Developmental delay is considered when a child fails to meet one or more developmental milestones related to motor, speech and language, socialfunctioning, or daily living skills.

Incidence reports that a diagnosis of developmental delay occurs in up to 15% of children under age five, with the incidence increasing from 12.84% to 15.04% over the past 12 years. For the purposes of this paper, developmental delay is defined as a significant developmental difficulty achieving specific milestones when compared with same age peers. Most relevant literature defines significance as performance that is one to two standard deviations below the mean on age appropriate, standardized, norm reference testing. Read more.........................