Making Developmental Screening Routine in Pediatric Practice
Commonwealth Fund
Nationally, about 16 percent of children have some form of disability, including speech and language delays, mental retardation, learning disabilities, and emotional or behavioral problems.
Even for children without problems, screening offers a way for providers to solicit parents' concerns and for families to learn about age-appropriate behavior and development.
In "Setting the Stage for Success: Implementation of Developmental and Behavioral Screening and Surveillance in Primary Care Practice," (Pediatrics, July 2006), Marian F. Earls, M.D., of Guilford Child Health and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and Sherry Shackelford Hay, M.P.A., of the North Carolina Office of Research, Demonstrations, and Rural Health Development, present strategies for integrating developmental screening into pediatric offices.
North Carolina's ABCD Project North Carolina's efforts were supported by The Commonwealth Fund's Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD) initiative, which is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of the health care system to support the early development of children from low-income families.
Physicians Are Key to Implementation The authors attribute North Carolina's success to the fact that it was led by physicians.
Resources for Replication The model spread through the state partly through the efforts of a physician champion, who led an ABCD advisory group and participated in child welfare committees.
The state also worked to identify care management resources in local communities to support practices.
In addition, the ABCD project team developed resources to guide practices in implementing developmental screening and surveillance.
According to a 2002 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) survey, most pediatricians (71%) use clinical observation only, without a screening instrument, to identify children with developmental delays.
