DEVELOPMENTAL MOVEMENT MILESTONES: What They Mean for Your Child Brain Development, and Why They are Important!
I am excited to announce that this is the first blog in a series of educational information for parents that have kids with developmental delays like Autism, ADHD, Sensory processing disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, etc… This developmental series will not only have blogs, but also live events on Facebook, webinars, and podcasts! If you want to follow, like this page or like us on Facebook at Infinity Chiropractic Center: Pediatrics and Developmental Delays!
It is amazing how often I hear bad information when it relates to a child’s milestones.
I hear things like, “My pediatrician said it wasn’t a big deal if my child didn’t walking by one!” or “My child never crawled, but it’s no big deal!”
In this blog I am going to teach you what milestones mean for the brain, and why they are vital for your child’s development and health. I will also discuss what could happen if your kids don’t hit those milestones! There are many different types of milestones, I am going to discuss their movement developmental milestones because those are the earliest milestones that relate to brain development!
The first thing to effect the development and start the development of milestones is primitive reflexes. Primitive reflexes are reflexes that develop in the womb through the first year of life! These reflexes are what start reflexive movements, or get infants to start moving, and get them moving in the correct patterns!
These reflexes are so important because they help develop things like feeding, grasping objects, following objects with eyes, reaching for objects, rolling over, development of creeping and crawling, along with walking, and much much more! If these reflexes never develop or don’t go away at the appropriate time these milestones will not be hit. These reflexes are responsible for developing the brain stem, and start the development of the cerebellum! These areas are crucial for developing movement milestones!
Primitive reflexes help the brain to develop from the bottom up, eventually developing the frontal lobes through movement. If your child does not develop movement efficiently they will not build their frontal lobes effectively. This results in delays in higher cognitive processes like learning, behavior, attention, speech, etc.
The reason why is because the higher centers in the brain develop out of the motor cortex, or movement cortex. If kids don’t develop primitive reflexes correctly, the motor areas don’t develop well and will effect all future perception, movement, and learning. The largest window into this development is through their developmental motor milestones. This is why milestones are important.
They develop at specific times in development based off of the areas of the brain that are developing at that time. If they skip a milestone or they are delayed in it, that tells us that they are having delays in how the brain is developing, or that they are having abnormal development of areas of the brain associated with that milestone.
The good news is that if these delays are caught early they can be caught up quickly by a doctor that looks at these developmental aspects. In our experience, getting them caught up with these milestone will help kids to have decreases in delays. Many kids with these delays get unnecessary diagnosis in the future, or have learning delays, behavioral issues, or attentional issues! These issues are the largest health concerns of our time and they are only getting worse.
If you have a child that has delays in developmental movement milestones we can likely help! Some cases can be completely resolved and others can only be improved, but an improvement can make large differences when it comes to your child’s ability to learn in the future!At Infinity it is out mission to redevelop the underdeveloped and give every child the chance to #LIVEWITHOUTLIMITS.
Dr. Josh Madsen
www.iowainfinity.com
