Nrnp 6665 - Final Exam Review - Walden

DSM CHAPTER 12 DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONES Milestones are recognizable skills or abilities that have an expected range and order of appearance, such as a child taking his first step around the time of his first birthday. Identifying any significant variations from expected patterns, such as a child taking that first step near his second birthday, is a key task for any practitioner. Knowing when a significant variation in development has occurred improves diagnostic accuracy because DSM-5 specifically requires consideration of developmental stages Five different milestone skill areas should be evaluated: gross/fine motor, visual motor problem solving, speech and language, social/emotional, and adaptive skills Gross motor skills are the most obvious to recognize because they involve crawling, walking, running, and throwing Visual motor problem solving describes a childs physical interactions with the world. Fine motor skills (using ones hands and fingers) rely on visual input and generally progress at a slower pace than gross motor skills. If the development of these milestones is delayed, it may be because of impairments in cognitive, sensory, or motor abilities. To be able to communicate, a person first must be able to receive input (process what is seen and heard), understand the meaning of that input,