What should you do if your child is developmentally delayed?

If a child is lagging behind in physical and mental development, this can be determined by his behavior. The child may not perform the simplest tasks, which his peers perform instantly. The child may not absorb the educational material, his reactions may be slow - of course, parents worry. What to do if the child is lagging behind in development?

Reasons for a child's delay in physical development

When a child's mental development slows down, it can be caused by an incorrect pedagogical approach, delayed mental development, dysfunction of the central nervous system, or underdevelopment of the brain, which leads to mental retardation.

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Incorrect pedagogical approach

If the approach to a child is wrong, he may not know and not learn many things. Developmental delays appear, and they are explained not just by brain dysfunctions - the child is healthy - but by neglected upbringing. When a child lacks information, and at the same time is not encouraged to engage in mental activity, the child's ability to learn and process information is sharply reduced. But if the child is approached correctly, these gaps will gradually be eliminated. If classes are held regularly, everything will be fine, the child will eventually catch up with his peers.

Mental retardation

In other words, a child's mental development delay. It manifests itself in a very variable way. But this feature can always be distinguished by the nuances of behavior, which make it possible to distinguish mental retardation, pedagogical neglect and a delay in the manifestation of mental reactions. Children who have a mental development delay do not suffer from disorders in the brain, but they have behavior that is completely uncharacteristic for their age, immature, more childish, there is increased fatigue, insufficient performance, such children quickly get tired, without finishing their work.

These symptoms can be explained by the fact that the mother's birth was pathological, with disorders that led to illnesses in the child. Therefore, in early childhood, the child can often suffer from infectious diseases that affect, among other things, the nervous system. These diseases and behavioral problems are based on organic deviations in the functioning of the child's nervous system.

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Biological causes of developmental delays in children

• Disorders in the mother's body during pregnancy
• Mother's illnesses during pregnancy
• Alcoholism and smoking addiction in pregnant women
• Psychological, neurological, psychosomatic diseases of relatives of a sick child
• Childbirth with pathologies (caesarean section, forceps extraction, etc.)
• Infections that the child suffered in early preschool age

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Social causes of child developmental delays

• Strong control (overprotection) of parents
• Aggressive attitude towards a child in the family
• Mental trauma suffered in early childhood

In order to select a correction program for a child who is lagging behind in development, it is not enough to simply identify the cause (by the way, they can be complex). It is also necessary to make a diagnosis in a clinic with a psychologist and a pediatrician so that the treatment is complex.

Today, doctors divide mental retardation (MR) in children into four types

Mental infantilism

Such children are hot-tempered, whiny, dependent, and tend to express their emotions violently. The mood of such children often changes: just now the child was running and playing happily, and now he is crying and demanding something, stamping his feet. It is extremely difficult for such a child with mental infantilism to make decisions on his own, he is completely dependent on his father or mother, his emotional-volitional sphere is impaired. It is very difficult to diagnose this condition, because parents and teachers may take it for pampering. But if we draw an analogy with how the child's peers behave, a delay in his development is very clearly visible.

Mental retardation of somatogenic origin

This group consists of children who constantly suffer from frequent colds. This group also includes children with chronic diseases. And also - children whose parents have wrapped them up too warmly since childhood, worried about them too much, heated ice cream and water, so that, God forbid, the child would not catch a cold. Such behavior - excessive parental care - does not allow the child to learn about the world, so his mental development is inhibited. Hence the inability to be independent, to make decisions on his own.

Neurogenic causes of developmental delay in a child No one takes care of the child or, on the contrary, he is overprotected. Violence on the part of parents and traumas suffered in childhood are also considered neurogenic causes of developmental delay in a preschooler. This type is characterized by the fact that moral norms and behavioral reactions are not brought up in the child, the child often does not know how to express his attitude to something.

Organic cerebral developmental delays

Nature is already at work here. That is, deviations in the body - organic deviations in the functioning of the nervous system, the brain function of such a child is impaired. This is the most difficult to treat type of developmental delay in a child. And the most common one.

How to identify deviations in a child’s development?

According to scientists, this can be done in the first months, as soon as the child is born. It is even easier to do this in the younger and middle preschool age (from 3 to 4 years). You just need to watch the child carefully. If his development is delayed, then some unconditional reflexes will be especially developed or, on the contrary, they will not be there at all, although healthy children have these reactions.

1. The baby continues to suck something after three months of birth (finger, sponge, edge of clothing)
2. After two months, the child still cannot concentrate on anything - cannot look or listen attentively
3. The child reacts too sharply to sounds or does not react to them at all
4. The child has very little ability to follow a moving object or cannot focus his gaze at all.
5. Up to 2-3 months, the child still does not know how to smile, although this reflex appears in normal babies already at 1 month
6. At 3 months and later, the child does not "coo" - this indicates speech disorders; the child babbles until 3 years, although in healthy children, distinct speech begins to appear much earlier - at 1.5-2 years
7. When a child grows up, he cannot clearly pronounce letters, does not remember them. When he is taught to read, the child cannot grasp the basics of literacy, it simply does not come to him.
8. In kindergarten or school, a child is diagnosed with dysgraphia (writing skills are impaired), cannot count basic numbers (there is a disease called dyscalculia). A child of middle and senior preschool age is inattentive, cannot concentrate on one thing, quickly changes activities.
9. A preschool-aged child has a speech disorder

Treatment of a child who is lagging behind in development

If you start treating a child who is lagging behind in development from the first months of his life, you can do significant work and achieve very good results. If the delay in the child's development is caused not by biological but by social factors (his nervous system is healthy), then with the persistent work of doctors and physicians you can achieve a full recovery of the child. The golden law applies here: the sooner you start working with the child, the better and faster the result will be.