DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE

What is developmental delay?

As a child develops and matures, he achieves various skills, such as smiling, crawling, responding, sitting, walking or talking at expected times. When your child does not reach these developmental skills or milestones as expected and continuously lags behind, it is termed as a developmental delay. Development in every child may vary; however when it is not achieved within a normally expected time range, you do need to get concerned.

Types of developmental delays

• Motor skills: Includes gross motor skills like sitting, standing or balancing and fine motor skills like drawing, writing, buttoning etc.

• Speech and language: Includes communication using words and gestures

• Cognition or understanding: Includes the ability to understand, reason and memorize

• Social skills: Includes the ability to interact as well as understand feelings and respond appropriately

• Global developmental delay: Children may show delays in one or a combination of the above skills and when most of these skills are delayed we term it as ‘Global developmental delay’ or GDD. GDD is often seen when an underlying condition exists such as those affecting the genes (Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome), conditions before and during birth (hypoxia, prematurity) and more than often the cause is unknown.

What are the causes of developmental delay?

Many conditions result in causing delayed development in children, some of which are:

• Conditions in an infant soon after birth like hypoxia (oxygen deprivation) and Prematurity.

• Alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

• Genetic disorders like Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome.

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

• Cerebral palsy (CP).Muscular dystrophies.

Speech and language delay causes

The most common form of developmental delay has some very unusual causes. They can be:

• Specific type of learning disability e.g. dyslexia. Speech muscle disorder called dysarthria.

• Hearing loss which needs to be rectified early.

• Social, behavioral and cognitive disorders like Autism, ADHD, Asperger’s syndrome.

• Continuous exposure to multiple languages or an setting where a foreign language is spoken.

Developmental delay and Homeopathy

Homeopathy plays a vital role in developmental delays and should be opted for not only treating the delays but for treating the root cause too. Though not all causes can be cured they can certainly be improved. Overall progress in the development of the child and his/her ability to get over the shortcomings can be expected. Remedies used to vary depending on the cause and the nature of delay.

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