pdd and apd what is developmental delay

PDD And APD: What Is Developmental Delay?

Developmental Disability includes Autism, Asperger's, Pervasive

Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified and other diagnoses.

Developmental Delay includes ADD, LD, Dyslexia, and others. Then there

is Global Developmental Disorder and Central Auditory Processing

Disorder, and I don't know where they fit in the official structure of

diagnostic labels, but I know they are a developmental difficulty.

I have been working with children with developmental difficulties for

years. I use the terms developmental difficulties to encompass

everything from Developmental Disability to Developmental Delay, and

even more. In our consulting program we consider them all

fundamentally the same. They differ only by degrees. We have developed

protocols which work with all of the developmental difficulties. Our

program awakens the child's unrealized keys for becoming

age-appropriate.

What is the magnitude of this problem?

All of these developmental difficulties add up to about 28 million

children in the USA. The Census Bureau calculates there a total of 85

million children in the USA. The APA (American Pediatric Association)

reports that one in every six children have a diagnosis for some

developmental difficulty (16.7%). The different associations for all

of the individual diagnostic labels of developmental difficulties all

agree when they report that about 50% of the children with these

problems obtain a diagnosis for their problem (for a total of 33%).

And, 33% of 85 million is 28 million children.

That means that 33% of all the children in every class have some level

of developmental difficulty. Maybe it shows up as an inability to

focus or sit still. Maybe it shows up as an inability to learn

reading. Maybe it shows up as an inability to kick a ball. Maybe it is

so intensive, the children never learn to connect to other people.

Maybe it is mild and only an annoyance to the child and the parents.

In whatever level of intensity, developmental difficulties seem to be

growing in percentages. We are obviously getting better with our

diagnoses. And, we are obviously advanced as a culture so that we

offer those testing services to more families who otherwise could not

afford it. But, I am not sure this is the reason we have 1/3 of our

children with developmental difficulties.

When I was a child in school, many years ago, I do not remember 1/3 of

the children having these types of difficulties in my classrooms. I

remember that maybe 5% to 10% could have had these kinds of

difficulties, but certainly not 1/3.

What is a developmental difficulty?

Quite simply, it is some blockage in the developmental process. All

living things have a life cycle. Much of the initial phases of that

life cycle are spent in developing. From inception to maturity, all

living things progress through a series of milestones. For us humans,

we call them our developmental milestones.

For those with developmental difficulties, they do not progress

through their milestones appropriately. They get blocked at some of

the milestones. They skip some milestones. So, many of the basic

learning processes needed for appropriate maturity, are lost. And, in

some cases a child is held in a stage and does not pass out of it on

to the next developmental stage.

I think that all of the unique diagnostic labels are related to some

basic factors. In which developmental milestones did the child get

blocked or which milestones did the child skip? How intense is the

'stuckness?' And, how many milestones did the child skip?

What can be done about it?

All of the different diagnostic category associations in the field of

developmental difficulties are clearly speaking on one voice when they

say that the 1) developmental process is blocked and that 2) there is

no cure.

Researchers in this field do not know what to do to cure developmental

difficulties. Nothing that they try affects the developmental process.

For decades clinicians have tried everything they can think of to do

and nothing works.

After all these frustrating years, they have finally agreed with each

other that there is no cure. And, now it is official. All of the

diagnostic associations and all of the groups creating the diagnostic

definitions agree that there is no cure. Now, they invest all of their

research dollars on finding causes instead of developing fixes for 28

million children with these developmental difficulties.

They have tried many things, but they have not tried everything.

With our work the children round out the chinks in their movement