Early Identification, Assessment and Interventions in Children with Developmental Disabilities: A Review on Autism.
Developmental disabilities are a set of conditions which occur during human development as a result of atypical development that influence typical development affecting the child’s language, physical and mental abilities or behavior. Examples include autism and other related disorders which affect the way children are attaining normal developmental milestones. Health care professionals particularly nurses in collaboration with parents have the responsibility to monitor and discuss the child’s growth and development.
That is, smiling, babbling, pointing, waving and sharing interests as well as playing, sitting, speaking, and moving among others. During the developmental screening a nurse practitioner (NP) or a physician looks closely at how the child is moving from one stage of development to another.
It is worthy of note that a brief screening test does not usually provide a diagnosis of developmental disabilities. However, it tells whether a child is developing normally or if a specialist should
conduct a detailed assessment. A formal developmental evaluation is then required, if the screening test suggests an atypical development. This formal assessment gives a critical look at the child’s development, typically conducted by a team of well-trained experts.
In addition, the NP should assess each child and determine whether they are achieving .Joint attention is the ability of the child to share another person’s interest, usually the mother or draws the mother’s attention to his/her focus/object of interest. That is, the child follows the mother’s gaze to look at the object she is looking at, and looks back at her with shared effect, or looks at an object and then gaze at his or her mother and the object repeatedly to draw her attention to his/her object of interest.
Pediatr Neonatal Nurs Open J. 2022; 8(1): 25-37. doi: 10.17140/PNNOJ-8-136
