Physical
From the time of a baby's birth, we eagerly wait for the day when our child will start to roll over, crawl and then walk. Unlike speech and language development, these milestones are at first glance easily determined. Either a child rolls over or he doesn't. Either he crawls or he walks. Yet, what many parents do not know is that within the field of physical development there are separate areas of development and within those areas the manner in which a child is able to accomplish a certain task, can make a big difference in his life.
Once a child learns how to walk, it may be important to examine how that child walks. Does he put one foot in front of the other? What is his gait? Is his pace steady? Once a child learns how to draw with crayons, it may be important to examine the way he draws. How does he hold the crayon? Can he put sufficient pressure on it?
In order to help you answer these questions and better understand the area of physical development, this series will give you basic background information and a developmental checklist to check on your child's development in this area. The area of physical development can be divided into two main areas:
- Gross Motor Development
This is the area of physical development that most parents think of first - the child's general ability to move around and use the various parts of his body. Activities like rolling over; crawling, walking, running and jumping are gross motor skills. These skills usually involve using the entire body or several parts of the body at one time.
Some of the areas that are considered when evaluating the area of gross motor development are:
Muscle Tone: How tightly or loosely a person's body is put together? If a child's body is too tight (high tone) then his movements might be jerky or disconnected. If a child's body is too loose (low tone) then her movements might be slow and lack strength. Some technical terms that are associated with these areas are Hypertonic (someone who has high tone) and Hypotonic (associated with low tone). These are professional terms and do not apply to every child whose tone happens to be either a bit tight or a bit loose. Only a professional can decide if a child's skills fit these criteria.
Emotional
Children are precious; As parents we worry about their health. When our children have issues and crises, these issues and crises affect us just as much, if not more, than it affects them. We fear that which might bring them fear; we hurt when we see them hurt; and sometimes, we cry just seeing them cry. Writer Elizabeth Stone once said "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." So, when it seems like something is not quite right with your children - perhaps they seem more afraid than other kids, or they seem to get a lot angrier than their playmates do over certain things - this odd or "off" behavior can be experienced as terrifying. In fact, a child's difficulty can be just the starting point for your parental worry and concern. You might not know what to do to help your child, or where to go for help. Possibly, you may worry because you don't even know if your child's problem is something you should be concerned about in the first place.
We've created this survey of childhood mental and emotional disorders to help worried parents better understand the various ways that mental illness can effect children; what it looks like and how it can be helped. Children's mental and emotional disorders are problems that affect not only their behavior, emotions, moods, or thoughts, but can also affect the entire family as well. These problems are often similar to other types of health problems that your child might have, and can generally be treated with medications or psychotherapy (or a combination of both).
Intellectual Problem
| Mental retardation | |
|---|---|
| Classification and external resources | |
| ICD-10 | F70.-F79. |
| ICD-9 | 317-319 |
| DiseasesDB | 4509 |
| eMedicine | med/3095 neuro/605 |
| MeSH | D008607 |
Mental retardation (MR) is a generalized disorder, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors that appears before adulthood. It has historically been defined as an Intelligence Quotient score under 70.[1] Once focused almost entirely on cognition, the definition now includes both a component relating to mental functioning and one relating to individuals' functional skills in their environment. As a result, a person with a below-average intelligence quotient (BAIQ) may not be considered mentally retarded. Syndromic mental retardation is intellectual deficits associated with other medical and behavioral signs and symptoms. Non-syndromic mental retardation is intellectual deficits that appear without other abnormalities.
Mental retardation is a subtype of intellectual disability, and that term is now preferred by most advocates in most English-speaking countries as a euphemism for mental retardation. However, intellectual disability is a broader concept, and includes intellectual deficits that are too mild to properly qualify as mental retardation, too specific (as in specific learning disability), or acquired later in life, through acquired brain injuries or neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. Intellectual disabilities may appear at any age.
Developmental disability is any disability that is due to problems with growth and development. This term encompasses many congenital medical conditions that have no mental or intellectual components, although it, too, is sometimes used as a euphemism for mental retardation.
Moral
Overview
When your child is a toddler--especially when he is two years old--he begins developing an internal conscience, explains the Journal of Genetic Psychology. In the complicated and isolating social context of the modern world, as the Dana Foundation notes, people must internalize the principles of decency in order for society’s moral foundations to hold strong. Hence, the toddler period is crucial because it establishes a person’s internal concept of morality, Psychological Science concludes.
Features
Imitating parents’ behaviors helps a toddler grasp morality; it shows that he notices “moral norms” and observes social behaviors, explains Psychological Science. The toddler also begins to experience “moral feelings” such as guilt, remorse and empathy, explains the Journal of Genetic Psychology. These feelings demonstrate that your child understands social connection and right and wrong. Perhaps most importantly, according to the journal, the toddler develops self-control, which enables him to resist wrongful desires, follow rules and obey orders.
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Limitations
At this young age, your child seldom considers the future when making decisions, explains the Dana Foundation. Instead, his morality is based on an understanding of immediate consequences. As a result, he often behaves properly only because he knows you’re watching. As the toddler continues to develop, he will slowly internalize the principles of proper behavior. During this process, adds the Journal of Genetic Psychology, your toddler will continue defying, ignoring and rejecting your commands, probably until he is about 4 years old.
Effects
Your toddler’s moral development will affect his future behavior. For example, toddlers who easily imitate their parents’ behavior tend to behave conscientiously in preschool, according to a study in Psychological Science. The effects continue throughout life; if the toddler internalizes moral concepts, then he can responsibly regulate his behavior as an adult, notes the Dana Foundation. But if the toddler only learns to obey rules, then he could become sneakily unethical. An essential element of moral development is learning self-regulation, the Journal of Genetic Psychology explains. This trait increases social compliance, but its absence or weakness creates greater behavioral problems.
Social
OBJECTIVE. The goal was to examine whether children who screen positive for social-emotional/behavioralproblems at 12 to 36 months of age are at elevated risk for social-emotional/behavioral problems in earlyelementary school.
METHODS. The sample studied (N = 1004) comprised an ethnically (33.3% minority) and socioeconomically (17.8% living in poverty and 11.3% living in borderline poverty) diverse, healthy, birth cohort from a metropolitan region of the northeastern United States. When children were 12 to 36 months of age (mean age: 23.8 months; SD: 7.1 months), parents completed the Brief Infant-Toddler Socialand Emotional Assessment and questions concerning their level of worry about their child's behavior, emotions, and social development. When children were in earlyelementary school (mean age: 6.0 years; SD: 0.4 years), parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist and teachers completed the Teacher Report Form regarding behavioral problems. In a subsample (n = 389), parents reported child psychiatric status.
RESULTS. Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment screen status and parental worry were associated significantly with school-age symptoms and psychiatric disorders. In multivariate analyses that included Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment status and parental worry, Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment scores significantly predicted all school-ageproblems, whereas worry predicted only parent reports with the Child Behavior Checklist. Children with of-concern scores on the problem scale of the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment were at increased risk for parent-reported subclinical/clinical levels of problems and for psychiatricdisorders. Low competence scores predicted later teacher-reported subclinical/clinical problems and parent-reported disorders. Worry predicted parent-reported subclinical/clinical problems. Moreover, the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment identified 49.0% of children who exhibited subclinical/clinical symptoms according to teachers and 67.9% of children who later met the criteria for a psychiatric disorder.
