APD: Keeping track of and showing the developmental process
As part of our consulting business specializing in the movement through the developmental stages, we needed a method for tracking the developmental process from month to month. The result is our free Developmental Checklist. Our clients use it to track the movement through the developmental stages of their child. It is useful for moms and dads of children with developmental problems to see and understand the status of their children?s movement through the developmental stages. It is also effective for all moms and dads to understand and to track the movement through the developmental stages of their child, without respect to the developmental situation.
Developing this checklist
When we began consulting with moms and dads about their children?s movement through the developmental stages, we recognized that many moms and dads do not understand much about the movement through the developmental stages. Families would tell us stories about what their child did new this week, but they had little knowledge that their child was demonstrating information about the developmental task on which the child was working.
Helping moms and dads understand the movement through the developmental stages
We needed something that helped moms and dads understand the movement through the developmental stages. We needed something that guided moms and dads 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, looking for something that was effective for moms and dads and caregivers, ourselves, and to other service providers who worked with the child.
We did not want to create a diagnostic instrument. We wanted something to help moms and dads understand and to keep track of the developmental process of their child.
One of the outcomes we had for the form was to have a better way of displaying the overview of the status of the child?s movement through the developmental stages. The standard way is to describe the child?s developmental age as a simple number of months or years.
What about this developmental age?
There are a lot of problems in this way of doing things. For instance, what are the developmental accomplishments 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. . .) accomplishments? Which of these accomplishments is best at indicating 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-based developmental improvement
Working with our system children address the holes in their developmental progress. When we reported to the moms and dads the status of the child?s movement through the developmental stages we wanted to provide a visual representation of that broad spectrum developmental improvement.
If we are only using some narrow, limited group of developmental accomplishments 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 accomplishments used to define the ?age? and make a lot of progress in other developmental accomplishments. We decided our task was to demonstrate the broad spectrum developmental improvement that children were making, so we wanted something to describe that.
What about developmental warning-signs?
In the 12-month and 24-month milestones, there are some line-items which are not developmental tasks. There is also an additional group of line-items, shown in our Developmental Checklist as ?6+ years.? These sections are developmental warning-signs.
These line-items are considered warning-signs of possible developmental problems. By themselves, when children are demonstrating behaviors shown in these line-items, this does not mean that there is a developmental problem. If a parent sees multiple of these line-items, the moms and dads should consider testing and diagnosis. Our Developmental Checklist is no used for diagnosis, only a professional can do that kind of testing and diagnosis.
Visual Overview
We wanted to give moms and dads the big picture of the broad spectrum developmental improvement. Our Visual Overview page provides a way for seeing that. It shows the current state of the child?s movement through the developmental stages across each of the milestones. It also shows any of the developmental warning-signs the moms and dads has identified.
Items details
Our free Developmental Checklist report also shows how the parent marked each of the line-items, from each of the milestones. If moms and dads want to use the checklist on a regularly basis, or to use it at the end of each milestones, these line-items details makes it easy to keep track of the answers provided the last time they used it.
Other service providers
We organized the checklist report to be effective for medical, psychological, and educational service providers. They will find the information effective for tracking children's movement through the developmental stages.
Rodger C Bailey, MS has degrees in Anthropology and Counseling. He provides Developmental Discovery System? consulting for families, (in English and Spanish), which assists the child?s suspended tendency for growing up. Checkout his Blog and his free Developmental Checklist.
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