What Is Developmental Disability

Published: 2021-03-26
Views: 535
Author: Marigold
Published in: Diseases

Developmental Disabilities according to the Centre For Disease Control and Development are “a group of conditions due to an impairment in physical, learning, language, or behavior areas.

These conditions begin during the developmental period, may impact day-to-day functioning, and usually last throughout a person's lifetime.”

What is Developmental DIsability?

The simple answer is that a developmental disorder is a condition that affects a child's ability to learn and grow at a normal/traditional pace for his or her age.

They will, for example, take longer to crawl, walk, or talk than other children their age.

Of course, since each child is special, there may be some difference in what they learn and when they learn it, but the 'skill at age blank' is used as a guideline.

About the age of nine months, for example, children typically:

• Crawls
• Has favorite toys
• May cling to familiar adults
• Can pick up small items with thumb and index finger
• Understands the word "no"
• May be afraid of strangers
• Imitates the sounds and movements of others
• Points with their fingers at objects
• Stands while holding on to something
• Can get up and sit without help

There are only a couple of the usual nine-month-old milestones.

If a child may not engage in these tasks, they may have a developmental disorder.

That being said, if your child seems to be missing a developmental milestone (such as crawling), please consult your pediatrician for an examination.

Child Developmental Monitoring and Screening

After they are born, children are usually followed by their pediatrician in a series of 'well-child visits.'

These appointments are used to immunize the infant and measure his or her development through these milestones.

In order to get a clear sense of where the child is in their development, the doctor will meet with the parents and examine the child.

If the doctor notices a developmental delay, they will order a developmental screening, which consists of a checklist or a set of questions about the child's movement, speech, behavior, and comprehension. 

A pediatrician can request one at any time, but the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screenings at nine months, eighteen months, and thirty months.

The American Academy of Pediatrics also suggests that an infant be screened for Autism Spectrum Disorder at the ages of eighteen and twenty-four months.

Causes of Developmental Disabilities

These disabilities can start at any point during a child's development (including in utero) and last for the rest of their lives. 

A developmental disorder can be caused by a number of causes. Here are a few examples:

• Genetics
• Premature birth
• Low birth weight
• Parental habits (if the parent smoke or drink alcohol while pregnant)
• Contracting Chronic Diseases during pregnancy
• Illness or accident during pregnancy or the first few years of life.
• Mother's susceptibility to environmental contaminants such as lead

Examples of Developmental Disabilities

Here are some examples of developmental disabilities

• Behavior disorders
• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
• Brain injury
• Cerebral palsy
• Autism
• Chromosome disorders, such as Down's Syndrome
• Intellectual disability
• Spina bifida

There are only a few examples of disorders that can lead to developmental disabilities.

Developmental Disability and the Educational System

As you would expect, children with intellectual disabilities face a number of difficulties at school.

For example, in the United States public school system, there are 'special education' classes where a developmentally delayed child is removed from the regular education system and put in one that is explicitly designed for children with disabilities (or the disabled child may be placed into a school specifically for developmentally disabled children.)

However, these steps on the other hand have their own defects. They include:

* No one-on-one Attention: In resource-constrained schools, disabled students are often grouped together in the same class, despite the fact that various disabilities impact learning in different ways.

A child with Down's Syndrome does not develop in the same way as a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder does.

Labeling a child and placing them in a catch-all class is unsuccessful since each child requires individualized care to thrive.

* Isolation and bullying are two of the most common forms of bullying.

Most schools are attempting to 'mainstream' their pupils, keeping a disabled child in normal classes as much as possible.

Although this is admirable, there are a few points I'd like to make: Bullying of disabled children occurs often, both by their peers and by able-bodied children.

Although mainstreaming does not guarantee that a disabled child will be bullied, it does increase the probability that they will be marked out as "odd" and feel self-conscious as a result.

* Regular schooling is ill-equipped to teach students with intellectual disabilities. The truth is that developmentally disabled people have unique learning requirements.

A teacher may receive little or no training about how to educate a student with a developmental disability.

Even if the teacher means well, a disabled child will often get lost in a thirty-student class and perform poorly as a result, even if the child is capable of learning the subject.

There are many other challenges that these students face, would you mind commenting on this topic about other challenges students face around the world?