Developmental and behavioral health screening is designed to identify problems or delays during normal childhood development. When properly applied, screening tests for developmental or behavioral problems in young children allow improved outcomes due to early implementation of treatment.

California’s early identification and intervention (EII) system, which seeks to identify young children with developmental delays or behavioral concerns and route them to appropriate services, has longstanding, systemic flaws. These are critical services that have the ability to dramatically affect the trajectory of a child’s life. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the need for innovative, coordinated health systems that are able to reach families in need, and the inequities in access to services for children and families.

California has one of the lowest developmental screening and early intervention rates in the country. While 18% of the state’s children have a developmental delay or disability, only 3% of children receive early intervention by age three. Screening rates are a key sticking point: just 26% of children are screened three times before age three, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Children of color and those living in low-income households are less like to be screened than white children and those living in higher income households.

Multiple factors prohibit children from being screened or connected to services in a timely way: providers have resource and time constraints; families are hesitant about screening and referral; and coordination among services providers is limited. Help Me Grow has led the charge to close the resulting developmental screening and service gaps, and to improve the functioning of the EII system in the 30 California counties where it operates.

Help Me Grow programs operate call centers; provide screening, referral, and care coordination; educate and provide outreach to parents and providers; train pediatricians and other community organization staff; collect data and build data systems; and convene partners so they can collaborate effectively.

Skills such as taking a first step, smiling for the first time, and waving “bye-bye” are called developmental milestones. Developmental milestones are things that most children can do by a certain age.

Because children develop at their own pace, milestones are not concrete rules. We can’t know exactly when a child might learn a new skill. However, we do know that Developmental Milestones matter! From birth to age 5, your child should reach milestones in how he or she plays, learns, speaks, acts, and moves.

Check or track your child’s milestones with CDC’s easy-to-use illustrated checklists; get tips from CDC for encouraging your child’s development; and find out what to do if you are ever concerned about how your child is developing.

2 Month Checklist

4 Month Checklist

6 Month Checklist

9 Month Checklist

12 Month/1 Year Checklist

15 Month Checklist

18 Month Checklist

2 Year Checklist

30 Month Checklist

3 Year Checklist

4 Year Checklist

5 Year Checklist

“Child development” refers to the sequence of physical, language, thought and emotional changes that occur in a child from birth to the beginning of adulthood. During this process, a child progresses from dependency on their parents/guardians to increasing independence. Child development focuses on how children are able to do more complex things as they get older.

Children develop skills that focus on 5 main areas:.

Adaptive: The ability to engage in self-help skills such as toileting, eating and dressing

Cognitive/Intellectual: (Learning and Thinking) the ability to understand cause and effect and to problem solve

Communication: (Speech and Language) the ability to use and understand speech and language. Speech impairments are those areas where an individual has difficulty with articulation, fluency and voice. Language impairments are those areas where an individual has problems expressing needs, ideas, or information, and/or in understanding what others say.

Motor and Movement: The ability to use large and small muscles for movement, balance, reaching, crawling, talking, grasping, picking things up.

Fine Motor Skills: Children learn to use their smaller muscles, like muscles in the hands, fingers, mouth and wrists. Children use their fine motor skills when writing, holding small items, buttoning clothing, turning pages, eating, cutting with scissors, drinking from a cup, bottle, or breastfeeding.

Gross motor Skills: Children develop their gross motor skills when they use their muscles which require whole body movement and which involve the large (core stabilizing) muscles of the body to perform everyday functions, such as standing and walking, running and jumping, hopping, sitting upright at the table.

Social & Emotional: Social-emotional learning is the process by which children learn to recognize their own emotions and the emotions of others, establish friendships/relationships and connections with others, learn to make good decisions, their ability to regulate and approach challenges and relate to others.