Category:Developmental Assessments
From Holoprosencephaly
Developmental Screening
Developmental screening is a procedure designed to identify children who should receive more intensive assessment or diagnosis, for potential developmental delays. It can allow for earlier detection of delays and improve child health and well-being for identified children.
Developmental screening can be done by various professionals in healthcare, community, or school settings. The role of health professionals has become particularly important, because of the greater emphasis placed on early identification of children with delays. Through well-child visits, health professionals have regular contact with children 0 to 3 years-of-age, allowing them an opportunity to monitor development through periodic developmental screening. This has led healthcare professional organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Neurology, to recommend that all infants and young children be screened for developmental delays periodically in the context of office-based primary care.
Screening tools
Screening tools are designed to help identify children who might have developmental delays. These can be specific to a disorder (for example, autism), an area (for example, cognitive development, language, or gross motor skills), or they may be general, encompassing multiple areas of concern.
Pediatricians now have many developmental screening tools from which to choose. The best instruments have good psychometric properties, including adequate sensitivity, specificity, validity, and reliability, and have been standardized on diverse populations. Parent report instruments, such as the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status,Ages and Stages Questionnaires and Child Development Inventories have excellent psychometric properties and the advantage of requiring much less time from the pediatrician than instruments that require direct examination. Instruments such as the Denver-II screening test Bayley Infant Neurodevelopmental Screener, Battelle Developmental Inventory,Early Language Milestone Scale, and Brigance Screens involve direct examination of the child's skills. The CAT-CLAMS is a test designed specifically for pediatricians to use in the office that assesses the child's cognitive and language skills independently and uses parental report and direct testing of the child's skills. Each screening instrument has strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Denver-II screening test is used widely but has modest sensitivity and specificity depending on the interpretation of questionable results. Each test also needs to be administered with adherence to specific instructions; otherwise, results are not valid. The choice of testing method may depend on risk factors in the population, time allotted for the procedure, availability of other sources of developmental screening in the community, and personal preference of the pediatrician. Recent reviews of commonly used screening instruments can help guide the pediatrician's choice of screening instruments. (Information from the American Academy of Pediatrics)
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/child/screen_provider.
