P2.135: Milestones Matter: Creating a Visual Developmental Milestone Library Through Parental Advocacy

Background: About 12-15% of children in the United States experience developmental delays or disabilities. The monitoring of childhood developmental milestones is crucial to identifying early delays, supporting child growth, and lessening the effect of adverse childhood events and trauma on growing children. The National Survey of Children’s Health estimated that parents of only 30.4% of children between 9 and 35 months partook in childhood developmental screenings in 2016. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urges physicians to initiate conversations about childhood milestones with caregivers at well child visits. For this purpose, they have created informative websites and the Milestone Tracker, an interactive app, for parents and caregivers. This study aims at supporting the AAP and CDC’s efforts in promoting parental monitoring of childhood developmental milestones by encouraging visual monitoring through photos and videos while ensuring access to free, reliable child development information to families of low socioeconomic strata.

Project Description: The aim of this study is to empower parents through parental advocacy by monitoring and digitally documenting developmental milestones in children between the ages of 2-24 months. A diverse study group of ten infants was carefully selected based on inclusive criteria. A 10 item survey was created to gauge parents’ current understanding of child development and readiness to participate in the project. A colorful poster handout was shared to familiarize parents with the project and relevant milestones. Caregivers were instructed to take pictures and short videos of their children reaching previously discussed critical milestones via mobile phone cameras with a goal of creating a digital visual library to be shared with pediatricians at well child visits.

Discussion: The advocacy of childhood developmental monitoring goes back to the very heart of pediatrics. The collaborative partnership between caregivers at home and pediatricians at the clinic is vital for ensuring adequate monitoring. Lack of parental understanding of milestones, an inability of physicians to observe children in their natural environment, and a dearth of culturally sensitive information all contribute significantly to the hurdles faced in collecting this data. We expect that initiating these conversations at well child visits as well as having parents capture visual evidence of their children reaching target milestones in their home environments will help bridge this gap, ensuring prompt and optimal redressal of developmental issues.

Conclusion: Encouraging parents to document childhood milestones is a cost effective, accessible, and practical way of including them in the conversation of their children’s growth. Not only is it more likely to provide a clearer and more accurate picture of child growth and development than written documentation alone, but it also serves as an invaluable treasure of memories for parents to look back on for the rest of their lives.