It is very important because many children in the world today are affected by varying degrees of such developmental disorders and they do not know about it, going through life with learning difficulties. First we take a look at the sensory motor cognitive development stage, which affects all children from the early onsets of infancy all the way till their 2 years old. At this reflexive and what is called ‘circular’ reaction and learning. Children at this age will often use physical associations and react to social stimuli (from their parents) as a form of learning. They should often be interested in new things and stimuli, especially movements, smiling, reaching out to touch people as a form of communication. Often, you can see if there are any problems with their developmental stage of their learning, with conditions like autism and autism spectrum often showing up as a complete reversal of these characteristics. You can easily spot if these conditions and nuero problems are in place as the toddler and infants would be extremely shy and withdrawn, smiling at people much less than normal and even finding solace in the arms of their parents at all times.

At the pre-operational period till their 7 years, this is when speech and other phonically in tune developments should be already at full swing. Forms of language and communication become less centred to themselves and has a social nature about it. He or she will be able to tackle concepts and rationale thought easier. But there may be still a propensity to centre concentration on one feature of an objective while ignoring others. This is where dyslexia and autism or even dyspraxia can appear in forms of speech difficulties, linguistic problems and even reading and writing. At this age, reading and writing should be developing at a progressive pace, and they will spill over to the period of concrete operations when they reach the age just before their teens.

The last stage of child learning should be at the period of formal operations when they finally reach their early teens, which means they can grasp logic and even do simple mathematical algorithms. These are some of the things you should know about when it comes to intellectual child development and also how you can spot early onset of developmental diseases and treat them with appropriate therapy so as to avoid it from becoming too bad.

Dyspraxia is a hotly contested landscape of medical definitions, while many camps are trying to focus and narrow down the exact definition of the developmental disease. There are many interpretations of the disease out there, but there are many umbrella diagnostic definitions that help to focus and help people to recognise the early onset of the disease and perhaps go for early treatment and therapy. There are two main things to note about dyspraxia, one called ideational dyspraxia; which is most characteristically known as the difficulty or even inability to plan a sequence of co-ordinated movements. The other one is known as ideo-motor dyspraxia, is the inability or even hurdle to execute a plan (normally physical), even if the person has full knowledge of the plan, or is the one behind it.

If you have a child and suspect that they have early onset developmental dyspraxia, then there are some things to note. It can be made known in areas of speech and language. Developmental verbal dyspraxia is more common in children and it appears normally in many difficulties which are associated with phonics, speech control and linguistic abilities. Children with dyspraxia often have a hard time in controlling the organs that control speech, they are unable to make the appropriate speech sounds, they cannot form words like other children and have especial difficulty in stringing sentences together. Also, there are some aspects of fine motor control, or body and limbs co-ordination you should know about.

Children with dyspraxia have trouble learning basic movements and their associated patterns, like lifting a cup to drink or opening a book to read. They are unable to comprehend or even to learn the basic movements necessary to even do simple things like write and draw. Look at the nuances of writing as well, especially in children. They will have trouble establishing the correct grip for writing and drawing equipment, and the hand and sometimes the entire arm. These are just some of the aspects of developmental dyspraxia that you should know about, nuances of early warning systems that should place the red flags necessary for fast action. Early therapy can really help dyspraxia from developing further into whole body co-ordination and even inability to control their body, which can mean a debilitating adult social life.

These include aspects like family therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, interpersonal skills and of course social skills training. These various forms of therapy are crucial to change the behaviour patterns that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has instilled into the individual. There is also the use of stimulants and medication, being the most effective and cheapest ways to treat ADHD. Medication has been approved by various bodies within the psychology circles all over the world but their long term safety has not been well documented. Many of these medicines and stimulants are used to treat patients over a period for as long as 5 or even 10 years at a time. These two are the main methods of treatment when it comes to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and so far, more than 70% of the children and individuals that have contracted ADHD use a combination of these methods to recover fully.

While there is no guaranteed 100% cure for ADHD, and there are dangers of lapses, therapy and medication has been seen as the most effective treatments and management of this behavioural disorder. The symptoms that appear in ADHD often come in the form of impulsiveness, hyperactivity and inattention, and this is a problem that is affecting more than 20% of the world’s population. Hyperactivity is very common among small children and even teenagers, but it tends to disappear when they reach adulthood.

What you need to know about these treatments is that they are entirely crucial and must be applied when the subject is at the early stages of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In fact, through professional appraisal and therapy, other co-existing conditions may pop up and require a different set of treatments. There is no one true cause for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and science has narrowed the root of the problem to areas like genetics, environmental factors, diet, social activity and even the physical surroundings of a child. This is even more pertinent when the child is within the developmental stages of his learning, when areas like behaviour and temperament are beginning to form due to learning and environmental absorption. One of the best ways to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is of course through prevention and knowing more about why it comes about on top of how to treat it is the best ways to ensure that it never happens.

Social impairments actually do appear quite early in their childhood and it is up to you to use the powers of observation and daily interaction to ensure that your child does not have any sort of autism. One of the best ways to see (especially if your child is an infant), is to try methods of social stimulation with them. A normal infant without developmental disorder will respond to stimuli quite normally, especially when responding to their own name and recognising familiar people around them. Infants with autism show much less attention to these aspects, smiling less, looking away and sometimes, they do not even respond to their own name.

They also avoid plenty of eye contact and will often bury their face in a blanket or pillow to hide from the world. These are just some of the tell tale signs to look out for to ensure that your infant child does not have autism. When they get older, there are other things to look out for. A normal child of that age is usually quite spontaneous, friendly, energetic and will try to make friends when introduced to other children within the same age range. Children who are 2 – 5 years old that have autism will be more introverted and much more clingy to their parents and guardians. They would have formed a fierce and strong bond with their loved ones and drawn a circle of safety that does not allow other people to come on.

They cannot fathom social situations, have no idea of the aspects of social understanding and they would limit their communication to non verbal actions like touching of the arm. Also, if you notice that your child is severely lacking in developing natural speech or any linguistic capabilities to support communication, than more than likely your child is autistic. Their reliance on non verbal communication is a tell tale sign that they are indeed autistic and have not adequately developed their verbal communication skills.

Of course when we are discussing autism, the normal repetitive behaviour, illogical insistence on things, fixation upon a particular object, stereotypy and self injury are the tell tale signs that something is wrong and something needs to be done soon. Other symptoms might include mal nutrition because of strange eating habits and poor psycho motor development. If you do have any fears that your child might be autistic, it is a good idea to get him or her professionally appraised by a child psychologists so that treatment and therapy can begin early so as to avoid more serious symptoms from cropping up.