Social Development
Includes: Relationships, Separations, Involvement, Focusing, Self-image, Anxiety Level, Impulse Control, Transitions
Red Flags: Be alert to a child who, compared with other children the same age or 6 months older or younger, exhibits these behaviors:
- Is anxious, tense, restless, compulsive, cannot get dirty or messy, has many fears, engages in excessive self-stimulation.
- Seems preoccupied with own inner world; conversations do not make sense.
- Shows little or no impulse control; hits or bites as first response; cannot follow a classroom routine.
- Expresses emotions inappropriately (laughs when sad, denies feelings); facial expressions do not match emotions.
- Cannot focus on activities (short attention span, cannot complete anything, flits from toy to toy).
- Consistently withdraws from people, prefers to be alone; no depth to relationships; does not seek or accept affection or touching.
- Treats people as objects; has no empathy for to other children; cannot play on another child’s terms .
- Is consistently aggressive, frequently hurts others deliberately; shows no remorse or is deceitful in hurting others.
Motor Development (Fine Motor, Gross Motor, and Perceptual )
Includes: Quality of movement, Level of Development, Sensory Integration
Red Flags: Pay extra attention to children with these behaviors:
- The child who is particularly uncoordinated and who:
- Has a lot of accidents,
- Trips, bumps into things
- Is awkward getting down/up, climbing, jumping, getting around toys and people
- Stands out from the group in structured motor tasks — walking, climbing stairs, jumping, standing on one foot
- The child who relies heavily on watching their own or other peoples’ movements in order to do them and who:
- May frequently misjudge distances
- May become particularly uncoordinated or off balance with eyes closed
- The child with extraneous and involuntary movements who:
- While painting with one hand, holds the other hand in the air or waves
- Does chronic toe walking
- Shakes hands or taps fingers
- The child who involuntarily finds touching uncomfortable and who:
- Flinches or tenses when touched or hugged
- May be uncomfortable lying down, particularly on the back
- Reacts as if attacked when unexpectedly bumped
- The child who compulsively craves being touched or hugged, or the older child who almost involuntarily has to feel things to understand them, who both may:
- Cling to, or highly brush, the teacher a lot
- Always sit close to or touch children in a circle
- Be strongly attracted to sensory experiences such as blankets, soft toys, water, dirt, sand, paste, hands in food
- The child who has exceptional difficulty with new but simple puzzles, coloring, structured art projects, and drawing a person, and who, for example, may:
- Take much longer to do the task, even when trying hard and produce a final result that is still not as sophisticated compared to those of peers
- Mix up top/bottom, left/right, front/back, on simple projects where a model is to be copied
- Still does a lot of scribbling (older child)
How to Screen:
- Observe child. Note when, where, how frequently and with whom problem occurs.
- Check developmental history – both heredity and environment play an important part in speech development.
- Look at motor development, which is closely associated with speech.
- Look at social- emotional status, which can affect speech and language.
- Write down or record speech samples.
- Check hearing status.
- Note number of speech sounds or uses of language