By Dr. Catherine Gant

WHAT EVERY PARENT NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT DEVELOPMENT

Developmental assessments are carried out routinely at birth, six weeks, eight months, two years, and pre-school. Their purpose is to detect problems and to see if special schooling may be needed.

Parents should remember that there is a huge variation in the ages at which individual children achieve milestones, particularly the gross motor skills such as crawling and walking.

WALKING

3% of children can walk at 9 months and 3% still cannot walk at 18 months, all of them completely normal.

The age at which children achieve motor skills often depends on the age at which parents achieved the same milestones. Bottom shuffling (where the baby scoots around on its bottom in the sitting position) runs in families and babies who move around like this often walk later as bottom shuffling is such an efficient way of moving around. Some surnames mean, ‘bottom shuffler’ and reflect its familial origins. Late walking may run in families and this has no bearing on intellectual development or general physical skills later on.

People often focus on milestones like walking as they are easily seen and there is a tendency for mothers to 'compete' about their child's development. Don't worry about this - if your baby walks late he or she will catch up with the early walkers. The age at which gross motor skills develop, for example sitting and walking, are some of the least important of developmental milestones.

We divide development into different sections, although, in reality they all overlap:

SPEECH

The age of developing speech is similarly varied. Developmental assessors are much more interested in the acquisition of language (i.e. does your two-year-old go and get his shoes when asked) than actual articulation. Delayed speech is commoner in children being brought up bilingually, children who are part of multiple births and boys.

The best way to encourage speech is to talk to your child from birth; if you feel silly, sing nursery rhymes. Give names to things in your baby's life - ‘Is that your teddy?’, ‘Do you want the spoon?’. Don't be afraid to use long words and complex grammar.

Children with glue ear can often say consonants that they can 'see', that is, the ones where the mother's mouth moves when pronouncing them for example 'b' and 'w'. They may have difficulty with sounds not associated with lip movement like 'r'. They may say ‘wug’ instead of rug. An experienced speech therapist will be able to tell the age at which the glue ear occurred by the speech sounds that are affected.

Stuttering should stop by two and a half years and the child should stop substituting 'th' for 's' by four years of age.

Speech therapy is extremely effective - if you cannot understand your child’s speech at age three years then get help, and, if you have concerns before this, then ask advice. Early intervention can produce miraculous results. To find a speech therapist, talk to your GP, or go to the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.

COMPETITIVE PARENTS SYNDROME

If you have any concerns about your child's development do talk to an expert until you feel satisfied. Don't take advice from gossiping mothers if you have a real concern, there is a lot of rubbish talked about development at coffee mornings!

BUT don't feel worried or let down if your child is doing things a bit later than children of the same age. All children are different. If you are feeling under pressure from competitive mothers then cut them out of your life; they are only making themselves feel more confident at the expense of your self-confidence.

Everyone worries about their mothering skills and feels insecure from time to time and parents who make you feel insecure as a mother or go on about how advanced or wonderful their child is are probably desperately trying to convince themselves that they are doing well as parents.

Get into the habit of looking at your child and thinking 'look at that beautiful baby, she's my daughter’ rather than dwelling on the negative 'why can't she walk when her friends can?'