Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Keeping track of and showing movement through the developmental stages

As part of our consulting program specializing in the movement through the developmental milestones, we needed a method for reporting movement through the developmental stages from month to month. The result is our free Developmental Checklist. Our clients use it to track the movement through the developmental milestones of their child. It is useful for families of children with developmental difficulties to see and understand the status of their children’s movement through the developmental milestones. It is also useful for all families to understand and to track the movement through the developmental milestones of their child, no matter the developmental situation.

Developing this checklist

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

Helping families understand the movement through the developmental milestones

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

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

One of the objectives we had for the format was to have a better way of showing the overview of the status of the child’s movement through the developmental milestones. 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 a lot of difficulties in this approach. For example, what are the developmental factors 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. . .) factors? Which of these factors is best at describing 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 difficulties will have completed some steps and not completed others. These children have begun some steps and not finished them. They have begun some other steps and finished them. And, they have not even begun some steps.

Broad spectrum developmental improvement

With our process the children fill-in the discontinuities in their developmental process. When we reported to the families the status of the children's movement through the developmental milestones we wanted to provide a picture of that broad-based developmental improvement.

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

What about developmental red-flags?

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

These items are thought to be red-flags of possible developmental difficulties. By themselves, when children are 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 families might think about 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 families the overview of the broad-based developmental improvement. Our Visual Overview page provides a way for seeing that. It demonstrates the current state of the child’s movement through the developmental milestones across each of the milestones. It also demonstrates any of the developmental red-flags the families has identified.

Items details

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

Other service providers

We created the checklist report to be useful for medical, psychological, and educational service providers. They will find the report useful for tracking any child’s movement through the developmental milestones.

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