As soon as your child is born, they start to meet new milestones and pick up new skills at the blink of an eye. But how do you know if they’re advancing at a developmentally appropriate pace?
The best way to keep track of your child’s progress during those crucial early years is through developmental screenings, paired with ongoing monitoring at well-child exams.
Discover from pediatricians Rainilda Valencia, MD, and Deepika Saini, MD, FAAP, at Valencia Pediatrics in Victorville, California, when your child should get developmental screenings.
Your little one develops throughout childhood and adolescence; however, there’s no point at which they grow physically and attain language, motor, cognitive, and social-emotional skills faster than in their first five years.
At this stage, your child’s growth happens more quickly than can be assessed at well-child visits alone. To fully evaluate your child, we offer regular developmental screenings in addition to our more traditional pediatric visits.
Developmental screenings are structured appointments where we check whether your child is meeting milestones expected at their age. If they require additional support in meeting these goals, the best time to assist them is during their first five years.
Interventions during early childhood years have the highest chance of success. Some issues, when corrected early, can go away completely, and others can be minimized or set your child up early with the support they need.
Developmental screenings can also be a real time of joy for you and your child as you witness their growth and progress together.
Our team recommends bringing your child in for several developmental screenings, combined with well-child exams, where we look at developmental milestones alongside other aspects of their growth.
As a general rule, your child needs more developmental assessments when they’re younger. If they’re developing as expected, these are the recommended screenings:
Ideally, our team should see your child within a week of birth. After that, we assess their development at well-child visits at:
Before nine months of age, our team assesses basic milestones expected in the very early months, such as when your child can hold their head up independently.
Your child attends their first dedicated developmental screenings when they’re nine months old. At this age, we can really start to see your child’s unique growth and how they’re progressing.
During this critical age, our team recommends dedicated developmental screenings at 18 and 24 months. Additionally, we further evaluate developmental milestones as part of well-child visits at 15, 18, and 24 months.
Your child needs two well-child visits at this age — when they’re 2 ½ and 3 years old. In the same year, we assess them at their final dedicated developmental screening at 30 months.
After your child turns 3, they generally only require annual pediatric visits and no longer need dedicated developmental screenings. However, assessing developmental milestones remains a critical part of the well-child visit through age 5.
If you or we have identified potential concerns about your child’s development, we might recommend additional screenings.
Once you bring your child in for developmental screenings, we carefully assess their progress at all their scheduled screenings. Contact us today to schedule your child’s next developmental screening.
