Improving the odds for effective developmental surveillance

TL;DRAbstract

It is now well known and documented that healthy early child development (ECD) is crucial, not only for long-term development for learning, but also for physical, emotional and mental health throughout one’s lifetime (1–5). To highlight the importance of this, the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) recently struck a task force on ECD to provide additional resources and advocacy tools to promote and enhance the quality of ECD. Primary health care providers, such as community paediatricians, family physicians and nurse practitioners, occupy a unique and pivotal role for the early detection of developmental abnormalities and are thus positioned to provide timely interventions for improving developmental outcomes. It is important to distinguish the concept of developmental surveillance, which is the monitoring of development over time for early identification of problems, from that of the more time-intensive practice of developmental screening, which is the application of a standardized

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