Developmental screening in primary care: the effectiveness of current practice and recommendations for improvement

Developmental screening in primary care: the effectiveness of current practice and recommendations for improvement

Collection:
Health Policy and Services Research
Contributor(s):
Sices, Laura.
Commonwealth Fund.
Publication:
[New York, N.Y.] : Commonwealth Fund, [2007]
Language(s):
English
Format:
Text
Subject(s):
Child Development
Developmental Disabilities -- prevention & control
Mass Screening
Primary Health Care
United States
Genre(s):
Technical Report
Abstract:
Developmental delays and conditions are common in early childhood, and are predictive of later learning and behavioral difficulties. Early treatment improves outcomes. For this report, a literature review was conducted to determine the effectiveness of current efforts by primary care providers to detect developmental delays in early childhood. Although data are limited, there appears to be significant under-detection of developmental delays in early childhood. While the prevalence of developmental delays is at least 10 percent, early intervention programs aimed at addressing these concerns serve only 2.3 percent of children under age 3. Use of validated developmental screening tools is supported by American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, but these instruments are neither widely nor systematically used in pediatric practice. The report makes several recommendations to strengthen developmental surveillance and screening, and thereby improve outcomes for young children and families.
Copyright:
Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
NLM Unique ID:
101468878 (See catalog record)
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101468878