Child development professionals agree. Many children are suffering from developmental difficulties. They also agree that all the problems that parents and teachers see in these children are related to the natural developmental process being blocked.
That is what the diagnoses of Developmental Disability and Developmental Delay really means. It is what PDD and GDD means. This is the basis for Autism (HFA & LFA), Asperger's, ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Disability, Central Auditory Processing Disorder, and many other diagnoses that we talk about as developmental difficulties. All of these problems are based in the natural developmental process being blocked.
The Mystery
One of the great present-day mysteries is that many children are not developing appropriately. They are not following the natural developmental process correctly. They are not following the normal developmental stages. Not all children are having developmental difficulties, but the percentage of those with problems is significant.
Researchers estimate that as many as 25%-30% of children (in the USA) are suffering from some developmental problem. Maybe not all of them have enough symptoms to obtain a diagnosis. The American Pediatric Association (APA) tells us that one of every six children in the USA receives a diagnosis for some developmental problem.
The associations for each of the different developmental diagnostic groups publish estimates of the percentage of children that should have a diagnosis for their diagnostic group. They tell us there is a lot of overlap between one diagnostic label and another (for instance, many autistic children also have LD and/or Dyslexia). Even assuming there is a lot of overlap, there are still around 17% of children who have enough symptoms that they receive a diagnosis. This matches the APA estimate.
Those associations estimate that only about half of those who qualify for a diagnosis actually go and get that diagnosis. If these estimates hold up, this means that (in America) there are around 28 million children who are not maturing appropriately.
Diagnosis
Humans are good at studying and creating structures. Researchers have studied and categorized all of the different ways that children are not moving through their normal developmental process. From this, they have developed long lists of symptoms which are organized into diagnostic categories. You know these groups as those diagnostic labels listed before.
Researchers are putting their emphasis on getting more precision in the diagnostic process. They are getting better and better at knowing precisely which diagnosis to apply for a specific set of symptoms. All of these diagnostic categories are used to categorize different sets of symptoms. All of these categories have two things in common:
1) There is no cure and
2) The natural developmental process is blocked
What is the treatment?
Parents are usually left on their own to create a treatment program. They usually have to start a trial-and-error process of examining various training options to find what works for their child. Because of the slow processes of the different services, it may take years to discover if a program is working for their child.
In some cases, doctors might offer medications. This is also a trial-and-error process until they find some medication which helps some. Most of this 'help' from the medications is for the parents and teachers to moderate the behavior of the child to a acceptable level. In some cases, the medications help the child focus, but they do not get the children to plug the voids in their movement through the developmental tasks. Many children say that when taking their medications they become "zombies" or they stop eating or have some other unpleasant side-effect.
Other treatments include psychologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, special education teachers, and the list goes on. These treatments are designed to deal with the child's symptoms. None of these professionals are trained to get the children to plug the voids in their movement through the developmental tasks.
"There is no cure."
This statement is the most difficult concept to understand and it is a significant foundation in each of the definitions of all the different developmental difficulty diagnoses. Researchers in the field know that there is no cure. People in the field are resolved to provide the best services possible, but this knowledge is a weight being carried by everyone. People try to put on a happy face. People want these children to have the best life possible. But, because there is no cure, there is little hope for improvement, and that is a heavy burden everyone carries when helping children with developmental difficulties.
The statement is that there is no cure. This is a present-tense statement that at present, there is no (known) answer. It is not a statement about the future or the past. It is simply a statement that no one has developed a answer, researched that answer to prove that it works, and published that answer to the world so that others can deliver that answer for their clients.
Over many years, with thousands of clinicians, academics, and researchers working with many different techniques, no one has found the answer. No one has found the answer for these developmental problems. The field has become so compartmentalized that researchers are rarely searching for something to get the children to plug the voids in their movement through the developmental tasks. They are only working on the symptoms of hyperactivity or whatever is their speciality. Because of this specialization, they cannot see that all the different diagnoses are all based on the same problem: the natural developmental process is blocked and something needs to be done to get the children to plug the voids in their movement through the developmental tasks.
People in the field have distorted the present-tense phrase, there is no cure, to mean that there never was a cure (past), there is no cure now (present), and there never will be a cure (future). This frame-of-reference, that a cure does not exist and is not possible, is crippling any search into the cure for these developmental problems. There is little funding for finding, developing, or delivering a answer for these developmental problems. One of the problems of any frame-of-reference is that it defines the limits of possibility. In this case, if the prevailing frame-of-reference is that there is no cure, a possible answer will never be found because it is not possible in the minds of the professionals in the field. As a frame-of-reference in this field of developmental problems, there is no cure, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Teach as much as possible to an un-teachable child
There is little or no service delivered to solve your children's developmental problems. Almost all services are designed to teach as much as possible to an un-teachable child. Because there is no cure, there is little work being done in investigation to find the answer.
Floor Time is the most promising concept in the field. This is an attempt to reach the child at their developmentally blocked place and work with the developmental tasks that are blocked. It is a good idea, because it tries to go beyond the symptoms and get to the processes at that developmentally blocked place. It falls short because it is not addressing what caused the developmental blockage and it is not working on the brain circuits needed for a smooth, natural developmental process (after the blockage is removed).
ABA therapy is one of the more popular training services available. Many children make some behavioral improvements using ABA. This is one of those approaches which is deeply seated in the frame-of-reference that there is no cure. ABA Therapy has no concept of a person using ABA to become age-appropriate; their patients will continue being developmentally disabled after working with them. ABA does nothing to get the children to plug the voids in their movement through the developmental tasks.
Summary
Normally, when we have medical or psychological problems we get a diagnosis and then some treatment. For developmental problems there is strong emphasis in the diagnosis, and little to provide for treatment.
The basic problem for all developmental problems is that the developmental process is blocked. None of the services commonly in use in this field are focused on, or are successful at, getting the children to plug the voids in their movement through the developmental tasks. The normal services for children with developmental problems are designed to teach the children how to become an adult with developmental problems.
The frame-of-reference of there is no cure, is so strong that you are not encouraged to have hope for your child to have a normal life. The future for your child, based on the common frame-of-reference, is to learn as many behaviors as possible to survive as an adult with developmental problems. Special education and ABA and most other programs are designed to prepare your child for transition into adulthood with these problems, but not for transition away from developmental problems.
These services need to become something which prepares their students for a normal life. That is what we offer with our consulting program. We get the children to plug the voids in their movement through the developmental tasks; we offer the opportunity for these children to transition to a normal life.
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Title: Low Functioning Autism: The Inherent Movement Through The Developmental Steps Is Out-Of-Gas
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