Definition
Children develop individually and at different speeds. A developmental disorder can occur in different areas of child development and can be pronounced to varying degrees. The impairments include speech and language disorders, abnormalities in school areas such as
Causes
Children can have various developmental abnormalities, which can be harmless or serious. Harmless developmental delays must be distinguished from serious developmental disorders. Developmental abnormalities can be caused by organic or psychological or psychosocial influences.
Psychological causes can come from “inside” or “outside”. Organic, i.e. physical, causes can be genetically determined, caused by diseases of the mother during pregnancy or various damages like malnutrition, delayed brain maturation or early brain damage. As a result, child developmental abnormalities can have various causes and therefore require thorough diagnostics.
- Internal causes for mental or emotional developmental disorders can arise from metabolic diseases.
- External causes are deficits in education or trauma in childhood. These causes can favour the development of relationship disorders, anxiety disorders or personality disorders in children.
Forms
Children can show developmental abnormalities in different forms. The abnormalities can affect only a sub-area such as motor skills or several areas, such as speech disorders and movement difficulties. Put simply, there are motor, mental and emotional abnormalities in the development of a child. Depending on the cause of the developmental disorder, very different forms of developmental abnormalities can occur. A motor developmental disorder can be conspicuous by clumsy behavior or even by pronounced perceptual disturbances in terms of body perception and orientation.
Motor developmental abnormality
A motor developmental disorder in children is often characterized by clumsiness and disturbed perception. Affected children often attract negative attention because of their clumsy behavior during sports activities such as cycling or jumping. A clumsy gait with an incorrect placement of the feet can be an indication.
Some children are extremely over-mobile. On the other hand, other children attract attention because of a very rough, clumsy typeface in kindergarten or school. Other characteristics of a motor developmental disorder are unclear, spurious pronunciation of the children and perceptual disorders.
These include a disturbed perception of body and/or strength and difficulties with the sense of balance and orientation. Children with a motor developmental disorder often reach the developmental milestones late. Thus, it is possible that children do not take their first free steps until they are three years old.
