Developmental Disability includes Autism, Asperger's, Pervasive Developmental Disorder and other diagnoses. Developmental Delay includes ADD, LD, Dyslexia, and more. Then there is Global Developmental Disorder and CAPD, and I don't know where they fit in the grand scheme of diagnostic categories, but I know they are a developmental difficulty.

I have been working with children with developmental problems for years. I use the terms developmental problems to encompass everything from Developmental Disability to Developmental Delay, and even more. In our consulting program we consider them all fundamentally the same. They differ only by level of intensity. We have developed protocols which succeed with all of the developmental problems. Our technique develops your child's intrinsic tendency for maturation.

How big is the problem?

All of these developmental problems add up to an estimated 28 million children in America. The Census Bureau reports there about 85 million children in America. The APA (American Pediatric Association) estimates that one in every six children have a diagnosis for some developmental difficulty (16.7%). The different associations for all of the individual diagnostic categories of developmental problems all agree when they tell us that about 50% of the children with these problems obtain a diagnosis for their problem (that makes it one third). And, one third of 85 million is 28 million children.

That means that one third of all the children in every class have some level of developmental difficulty. Maybe it shows up as an inability to focus or control impulses. Maybe it shows up as an inability to learn arithmetic. Maybe it shows up as being clumsy. Maybe it is so severe, the children never learn to connect to other people. Maybe it is mild and only an inconvenience to the children and the parents.

In whatever level of intensity, developmental problems seem to be growing in numbers. We are certainly getting more precise with our testing. And, we are certainly advanced as a culture so that we offer those testing services to more families who otherwise could not afford it. But, I do not think this is the reason we have 1/3 of our children with developmental problems.

When I was a child in school, in the 50s, I do not remember 1/3 of the children having these types of problems in my classrooms. I remember that maybe 5% to 10% might have had these kinds of problems, but certainly not 1/3.

What is a developmental difficulty?

In basic terms, it is some blockage in the developmental process. All living things have a life cycle. Much of the early phases of that life cycle are spent in maturing. From conception to maturity, all living things progress through a series of stages. For us humans, we refer to these as our developmental stages.

For those with developmental problems, they do not progress through their milestones appropriately. They get stuck at some of the milestones. They skip some milestones. So, many of the elementary learning processes needed for appropriate maturity, are lost. And, in some cases a child gets stuck in a task and does not pass out of it on to the next developmental task.

In my opinion, all of the unique diagnostic categories are related to some basic elements. In which developmental milestones did the child get stuck or which milestones did the child lose? How intense is the ?stuckness?? And, how many milestones did the child lose?

What can be done about it?

All of the different diagnostic label associations in the field of developmental problems are clearly in unison when they say that the 1) developmental process is not working correctly and that 2) there is no cure.

Academics in this field do not know what to do to cure developmental problems. Nothing that they try impacts the developmental process. For decades clinicians have tried everything they can think of to do and nothing works.

So, they have finally agreed with each other that there is no cure. And, now it is official. All of the diagnostic associations and all of the groups creating the diagnostic definitions agree that there is no cure. Now, they spend all of their research dollars on finding causes instead of creating solutions for 28 million children with these developmental problems.

They have explored many things, but they have not explored everything.

With our approach children fill-in the holes in their developmental progress. Our technique develops your child's intrinsic tendency for maturation.