For the first time in almost 20 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions moved milestones for babies and toddlers. They essentially lowered the standards since so many babies and kids aren’t meeting them. Of course, the CDC doesn’t give reasons why kids aren’t meeting these standards. They just lowered them.
Part of the summary reads: “Application of the criteria established by the AAP working group and adding milestones for the 15- and 30-month health supervision visits resulted in a 26.4 percent reduction and 40.9 percent replacement of previous CDC milestones. One third of the retained milestones were transferred to different ages; 67.7 percent of those transferred were moved to older ages.”
For example, one of the milestones that was pushed back was that little kids at age 24 months should be saying at least 50 words. The CDC says that same milestone should now be reached by 30 months of age. And crawling? That’s off the list.
This is a huge deal because many child development specialists and therapists have said that these changes will make early intervention services harder to obtain for parents.
One child development center in Oklahoma summed up why this is detrimental to kids:
What our readers say
Our readers, the majority parents, are concerned about this change. Many work in the child development field. Here’s what they have to say:
“Early childhood SLP here. The professionals that made these changes did NOT consult with professionals in the fields of speech, OT & PT. Now our standardized tests will not match up and it will create a nightmare of problems for testing, diagnosis & caseload. Also, parents will be confused as to who to trust. This will make are our professionals look uneducated.”
“Not okay. Not okay how they quietly changed the milestones in order to cover up the massive negative impact the lockdowns and quarantines had on children.”
“To cover up the poisoning of our children from vaccines and toxins, so the fallout of physical and mental issues is considered “normal”. Has anyone seen the data of childhood autism and neurological issues and the increasing shot schedule? Just getting worse.”
“I am an OT in early intervention. This is stupid at best and criminal at worst.”
“Think about schools too – less children on IEPs for delays means less responsibility on their end and less expenditure of $$ ie services, people, time that taxpayers pay for.”
“As a pediatric audiologist, I am extremely frustrated and disappointed by this.”
“We have been masking for 2 years. How are our babies suppose to learn to talk if daycare providers/caretakers/teachers have their faces covered?”
