Developmental Monitoring of Children

Robert Fettgather, Ph.D. is a psychology instructor who has served as a developmental disabilities consultant. He has written several publications and papers in the field. Dr. Robert Fettgather serves as an associate faculty member at Mission College in Santa Clara, where he instructs students in different areas of psychology and human development.

Developmental disabilities are typically life-long disabilities that begin during the developmental period and affect appearance, learning, behavior, and language. Developmental monitoring is a form of continuous assessment for developmental disabilities.

Parents who suspect that their children are suffering from developmental disabilities can employ developmental monitoring, which factors in the age and skills of a child with matching benchmarks called developmental milestones. Developmental milestones encompass expected playing skills, learning skills, locomotive skills, speaking skills, and behavior for a child’s age.

Parents, childhood education providers, and other caregivers can leverage the CDC’s Milestone Tracker app to vet a child’s developmental progress. A caregiver who prefers to use the checklist instead of the app can fill it out and share it with their child’s health provider, who can use the information to determine the risk of developmental disability and whether developmental monitoring is necessary.