Early detection for any ailment is key, and that includes a child’s development.
The developmental milestone checklist can help us be proactive in identifying delays a child’s development.
Recently, the CDC updated that checklist in the hopes of helping families identify developmental delays sooner. But, many fear it could have the opposite effect.
Families wait in eager anticipation for baby’s first giggle, first word, or first step, but sometimes those milestones don’t happen when we might expect.
That was the case for Melinda and Jacob Retzer’s son, Ben.
“We started noticing when he was around about fifteen months that he was not communicating and wasn’t meeting those milestones,” Melinda Retzer explained.
While some may say, ‘wait-and-see, your child may just catch up,’ the Retzer’s pediatrician recommended speech services for Ben, and that’s what they did.
This was all based on the “old” CDC developmental milestone guidelines. Under the new guidelines released in February, they could have delayed services for Ben for another fifteen months.
This is what has many concerned, including occupational therapist, Krisann Miller.
“So this is going to be detrimental, potentially, to a lot of our kids who are expected to reach these milestones,” said Krisann Miller.
If Ben’s situation happened under today’s guidelines, it would have been an entirely different story.
“At thirty months, if they went by the new CDC guidelines, then he wouldn’t have qualified for communication, and that was his biggest deficit,” Melinda explained. “We’d still I mean, we’d be we’d be months behind months.”
“Two years behind of therapy, instead of catching it early, and then taking care of then,” added Jacob Retzer. “So that just adds in more time, money, energy, and has him behind, you know, or the child behind their peers as well.”
Before the update, the fiftieth-percentile, or average age, was used for milestones. The newly revised milestones identify the behaviors that seventy-five percent or more of kids can be expected to exhibit at certain ages.
Miller is concerned that some may interpret this differently, leading to more delays in intervention.
“That there’s a wider range for being able to reach these milestones,” said Miller. “This just lengthens that gap of the delays before getting those kids help as soon as they can.”
And not only were the ages of milestones changed, some milestones were removed, such as crawling.
“Crawling is a huge milestone for kids before they walk to coordinate the brain together the left and right brain together to bilateral coordination,” said Miller.
Miller says many are also very concerned about communication milestones getting pushed back.
“We’re seeing kids now younger, with more behavioral and emotional regulation problems, because they cannot communicate,” Miller added.
There is however some good news. Your child can still be assessed, for free, if you have concerns, because as Miller emphasizes, not all kids simply “catch up.”
“It’s better to have them screened or looked at by a professional and have them say things are fine, then to wait and see and potentially have some detrimental consequences down the road,” said Miller.
