PROMOTING CHILD DEVELOPMENT PART 1

Promoting Child Development Series - Part 1

PROMOTING CHILD DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION

Any health supervision encounter with children involves promoting healthy child development. Understanding child development and the application of its principles sets the care of children apart from that of adults. Infants must grow to be children, then adolescents, and then adults. Health promotion to ensure physical, cognitive, and social emotional health as well as to protect the child from infectious diseases and injuries (intentional and unintentional) supports the healthy development of the child. Successful health promotion efforts should take into account the developmental reality of the child now, as well as her developmental expectations for the next months and her developmental potential for growth over time.

The health care professional plays an important role in identifying conditions that place the infant at risk of disability and warrant immediate referral to early intervention services

Health care professionals should note those children who require close developmental surveillance and periodic standardized developmental screening to permit the earliest identification of their need for intervention services due to other risk factors.

The health care professional also plays an important and continuing role in providing informed clinical opinion in determining the child’s eligibility and the scope of services that are needed by the child and family.

Care coordination of screening services and followupin the context of the medical home are important.

Domains of Development

During a child’s life, the most dramatic growth—physical, motor, cognitive, communicative, and social-emotional—occurs during infancy.

By 1 year of age, the infant hasnearly tripled his birth weight, added almost 50% to his length, and achieved most of his brain weight. By 8 months of age, brain connections have increased from 50 trillion to 1,000 trillion, and remain there through early childhood.During the remainder of childhood and adolescence, the brain is actively engaged in developing and refining the efficiency of its neural networks, especially in the prefrontal cortex, the critical brain region responsible for decision making, judgment, and impulse control. This dynamic process of neuronal maturation continues into early adulthood.