As part of our consulting service specializing in the movement through the developmental milestones, we needed a method for reporting movement through the developmental stages from month to month. The result is our free Developmental Checklist. Our clients use it to track the movement through the developmental milestones of their children. It is helpful for parents of children with developmental problems to see and understand the status of their children's movement through the developmental milestones. It is also appropriate for all parents to understand and to track the movement through the developmental milestones of their children, whatever the developmental condition.

Developing this checklist

When we began consulting with parents about their children's movement through the developmental milestones, we recognized that many parents do not understand much about the movement through the developmental milestones. Families would tell us stories about what their child did differently this week, but they had little knowledge that their child was providing information about the developmental step on which the child was working.

Helping parents understand the movement through the developmental milestones

We needed something that helped parents understand the movement through the developmental milestones. We needed something that guided parents to watch for important developmental signals. And, we needed something that would quantify a child's movement through the developmental milestones. We tried several different formats, searching for something that was appropriate for parents and caregivers, ourselves, and to other service providers who worked with the children.

We did not want to develop a diagnostic instrument. We wanted something to help parents understand and to track movement through the developmental stages of their children.

One of the outcomes we had for the format was to have a better way of demonstrating the overview of the status of the child's movement through the developmental milestones. The usual way is to describe the child's developmental age as a simple number of months or years.

What about this developmental age?

There are numerous problems in this way of doing things. For instance, what are the developmental factors used to decide the ?age? of the child? Do we use walking or talking? Do we use gross motor, fine motor, social/emotional, sensory (, etc. . .) factors? Which of these factors is best at indicating the child's age?

Even more of a problem is that for each milestones (commonly established at 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months), a child with developmental problems will have completed some steps and not completed others. These children have begun some steps and not completed them. They have begun some other steps and completed them. And, they have not even started some steps.

Broad spectrum developmental improvement

Working with our technique the children close the gaps in their developmental progress. When we reported to the parents the status of the children's movement through the developmental milestones we wanted to provide a visual representation of that broad-based developmental improvement.

If we are only using some narrow, select group of developmental factors to define the developmental ?age? of a child, in one month's progress we might miss movement through the developmental milestones in areas not used to calculate that ?age.? In one month a child might not make progress in the factors used to define the ?age? and make a lot of progress in other developmental factors. We considered our task was to show the broad-based developmental improvement that children were making, so we wanted something to demonstrate that.

What about developmental warning-signs?

In the 12-month and 24-month milestones, there are some line-items which are not developmental steps. There is also an additional group of line-items, shown in our Developmental Checklist as ?6+ years.? These sections are developmental warning-signs.

These line-items are believed to be warning-signs of possible developmental problems. By themselves, when a child is demonstrating behaviors shown in these line-items, this does not mean that there is a developmental problem. If a parent sees multiple of these line-items, the parents should think about testing and diagnosis. Our Developmental Checklist is no used for diagnosis, only a professional can do that kind of testing and diagnosis.

Visual Overview

We wanted to give parents the overview of the broad-based developmental improvement. Our Visual Overview page provides a way for seeing that. It shows the current state of the child's movement through the developmental milestones across each of the milestones. It also shows any of the developmental warning-signs the parents has identified.

Line-items details

Our free Developmental Checklist report also shows how the parent responded to each of the line-items, from each of the milestones. If parents want to use the checklist on a regularly basis, or to use it at the end of each milestones, these line-items specifics makes it easy to keep track of the answers provided the last time they completed it.

Other service providers

We designed the checklist report to be appropriate for medical, psychological, and educational service providers. They will find the report appropriate for tracking children's movement through the developmental milestones.