Most children reach developmental milestones at or around expected timeframes. However, some children experience delays in developing their communication, movement, daily living and social-emotional skills.
Some children with developmental delays catch up to their peers by age five, while other children continue to experience delays in one or more of these areas. Signs of developmental delay vary by age but can include:
- Not responding to sounds
- Not babbling, imitating sounds or using words at an appropriate age
- Not reaching for objects
- Not rolling over, crawling or walking at an appropriate age
- Not using gestures or pointing
- Not imitating your actions or words
- Unable to support head
- Unable to follow simple instructions as a toddler
These delays may be related to more specific neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, speech and language delay, learning disability or intellectual disability.
Assessment
Many things can cause developmental delays, including genetic conditions, the environment a child lives in and trauma. Sometimes the cause of the developmental delay is unknown. Typically, specialized treatment can address these delays.
If you think your child may have a developmental delay, your child’s doctor may refer you to a specialist at Riley Children’s Health. In your first appointment, you and your child will meet virtually or in person with a provider, such as a psychologist, medical doctor or nurse practitioner. You and the provider will discuss your child’s behavior and how your child has developed over time. This information helps the provider understand what’s going on. At the end of the appointment, the provider may speak with you about a diagnosis and make recommendations for how to address your concerns about developmental delays.
The provider’s recommendations may include:
- Further assessment to rule out physical problems that may be contributing to delays, like hearing, vision, orthopedic (in the bones or muscles) or neurologic (in the brain, spine or nerves) conditions
- Treatment with local providers, such as First Steps early intervention programs or outpatient therapies
- An assessment to see if your child needs special education services
Treatments
Treatments
Depending on what kind of developmental delay the provider sees in your child, the provider may refer you to early intervention or outpatient therapies, such as:
- Speech and language therapy. If your child has trouble communicating with others, a speech pathologist will work with them to improve communication skills. Speech therapists also work on the social aspects of communication, such as back-and forth conversation, and nonverbal communication, like eye contact.
- Occupational therapy. An occupational therapist works with your child to help them improve how their muscles function. Therapy can also help your child learn how to perform common daily activities, such as toilet training, getting dressed or doing homework. Occupational therapy is also helpful for children with sensory differences.
- Behavioral therapy. A trained therapist works with your child and family to teach positive behaviors and replace bad habits with good ones.
- Developmental therapy. Developmental therapy is a service primarily for children under the age of three. A developmental therapist may work to build skills in a range of developmental areas, including cognitive, physical, social-emotional and communication skills.
- Physical therapy. Physical therapy primarily addresses gross motor skills, including the use of arms, legs, torso and head.
- School-based interventions and support. Children with developmental delays often benefit from specialized support at school through an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP. An IEP can accommodate your child’s learning needs in a way that helps them be successful in school.
Support Services & Resources
Support Services & Resources
We offer a broad range of supportive services to make life better for families who choose us for their children's care.
This Indiana state program helps children ages 3 years old and younger receive services such as counseling, hearing assistance, physical therapy and occupational therapy.
The CDC website includes information on developmental milestones, steps to take if you are concerned about developmental delays and causes of delays.
This website provides screening and resources for tracking your child's development.
Our Safety Store sells over 150 safety products, including car seats, locking medicine boxes, medical ID bracelets, door alarms, and specialized safety kits for autism and developmental disabilities. The Safety Store also offers a Helpline to answer your safety questions.
CYACC helps families with the transition from pediatric to adult services for youth with special health care needs.
Learn about Indiana’s Family Supports Waiver and how to apply.
Learn about Medicaid coverage for incontinence, ostomy and urology supplies and how to find coverage.
Find out if your child under age 18 qualifies for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments.
Check out information and resources on developmental delays from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Read a study through the AAP on using developmental screening and surveillance to identify infants and young children with developmental disorders.
IN*SOURCE is a parent-founded and parent-led organization offering parents, families, individuals and service providers in Indiana the information and training necessary to help assure effective educational programs and appropriate services for children with disabilities.
Indiana Family to Family offers information, training and one-on-one support to families of children and youth with additional health and education needs, and the professionals who serve them.
Download this PDF from Riley Children's to learn about global developmental delay (GDD), and understand how these delays can look different for each child and what to expect.
ကမ္ဘာလုံးဆိုင်ရာဖွံ့ဖြိုးမှုနှောင့်နှေးမှု (GDD) အကြောင်း လေ့လာရန် Riley Children's မှ ဤ PDF ကို ဒေါင်းလုဒ်ဆွဲပြီး ဤနှောင့်နှေးမှုများသည် ကလေးတစ်ဦးစီအတွက် မည်သို့ကွာခြားနိုင်ပြီး မျှော်လင့်ရမည့်အရာကို နားလည်ပါ။
Telechaje PDF sa a ki soti nan Riley Children's pou aprann sou reta nan devlopman global (GDD), epi konprann ki jan reta sa yo ka parèt diferan pou chak timoun ak kisa pou atann.
Descargue este PDF de Riley Children's para aprender sobre el retraso global del desarrollo (GDD) y comprender cómo estos retrasos pueden ser diferentes para cada niño y qué esperar.