Add - Learning Disability: Tracking And Showing Movement Through The Developmental Stages

As part of our consulting service specializing in the movement through the developmental stages, we needed a method for tracking movement through the developmental stages over time. The result is our free Developmental Checklist. Our clients use it to track the movement through the developmental stages of their child. It is helpful for mothers and fathers of children with developmental problems to see and understand the status of their children’s movement through the developmental stages. It is also helpful for all mothers and fathers to understand and to track the movement through the developmental stages of their child, no matter the developmental situation.

Developing this checklist

When we began consulting with mothers and fathers about their children’s movement through the developmental stages, we recognized that many mothers and fathers do not understand much about the movement through the developmental stages. Mothers and fathers would tell us stories about what their child did differently this week, but they had little understanding that their child was showing data about the developmental step on which the child was working.

Helping mothers and fathers understand the movement through the developmental stages

We needed something that helped mothers and fathers understand the movement through the developmental stages. We needed something that guided mothers and fathers to watch for important developmental signals. And, we needed something that would quantify a child’s movement through the developmental stages. We tried several different formats, searching for something that was helpful for mothers and fathers and caregivers, ourselves, and to other service providers who worked with the child.

We did not want to develop a diagnostic tool. We wanted something to help mothers and fathers understand and to keep track of movement through the developmental stages of their child.

One of the objectives we had for the form was to have a better way of demonstrating the overview of the status of the child’s movement through the developmental stages. The normal way is to describe the child’s developmental age as a simple number of months and years.

What about this developmental age?

There are numerous problems in this approach. For example, what are the developmental steps used to decide the ‘age’ of the child? Do we use walking or talking? Do we use gross motor, fine motor, social/emotional, sensory (, etc. . .) steps? Which of these steps is best at showing the child's age?

Even more of a problem is that for each milestones (commonly established at 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months), a child with developmental problems will have completed some tasks and not completed others. These children have begun some tasks and not completed them. They have begun some other tasks and completed them. And, they have not even started some tasks.

Broad spectrum developmental advancement

While working with our approach children accomplish the gaps in their movement through the developmental steps. When we reported to the mothers and fathers the status of the child’s movement through the developmental stages we wanted to give a visual representation of that broad-based developmental advancement.

If we are only using some narrow, select set of developmental steps to define the developmental ‘age’ of a child, in one month’s progress we might miss movement through the developmental stages in areas not used to calculate that ‘age.’ In one month a child might not make progress in the steps used to define the ‘age’ and make a lot of progress in other developmental steps. We thought our task was to show the broad-based developmental advancement that children were making, so we wanted something to show that.

What about developmental warning-signs?

In the 12-month and 24-month milestones, there are some items which are not developmental tasks. There is also an additional group of items, shown in our Developmental Checklist as “6+ years.” These sections are developmental warning-signs.

These items are believed to be warning-signs of likely developmental problems. By themselves, when a child is demonstrating behaviors shown in these items, this does not mean that there is a developmental problem. If a parent sees multiple of these items, the mothers and fathers might consider testing and diagnosis. Our Developmental Checklist is no used for diagnosis, only a licensed professional can do that kind of testing and diagnosis.

Visual Overview

We wanted to give mothers and fathers the big picture of the broad-based developmental advancement. Our Visual Overview page provides a way for seeing that. It demonstrates the current state of the child’s movement through the developmental stages across each of the milestones. It also demonstrates any of the developmental warning-signs the mothers and fathers has identified.

Line-items details

Our free Developmental Checklist report also shows how the parent responded to each of the items, from each of the milestones. If mothers and fathers want to use the checklist on a monthly basis, or to use it at the end of each milestones, these items details makes it easy to keep track of the answers provided the last time they completed it.

Other service providers

We designed the checklist report to be helpful for medical, psychological, and educational service providers. They will find the report helpful for tracking children's movement through the developmental stages.