Sex-Specific Developmental Scales for Surveillance.
Pediatrics
; 153(4)2024 Apr 01.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38545666
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Developmental surveillance, conducted routinely worldwide, is fundamental for early detection of children at risk for developmental delay. We aimed to explore sex-related difference in attainment rates of developmental milestones and to evaluate the clinical need for separate sex-specific scales.METHODS:
This is a cross-sectional, natiowide retrospective study, utilizing data from a national child surveillance program of â¼1000 maternal child health clinics. The main cohort, used for constructing sex-specific developmental scales, included all children born between January 2014 to September 2020, who visited maternal child health clinics from birth to 6 years of age (n = 839 574). Children with abnormal developmental potential were excluded (n = 195 616). A validation cohort included all visits between 2020 and 2021 (n = 309 181). The sex-differences in normative attainment age of 59 developmental milestones from 4 domains were evaluated. The milestones with a significant gap between males and females were identified, and the projected error rates when conducting unified versus sex-specific surveillance were calculated.RESULTS:
A new sex-specific developmental scale was constructed. In total, females preceded males in most milestones of all developmental domains, mainly at older ages. Conducting routine developmental surveillance using a unified scale, compared with sex-specific scales, resulted in potential missing of females at risk for developmental delay (19.3% of failed assessments) and over-diagnosis of males not requiring further evaluation (5.9% of failed assessments).CONCLUSIONS:
There are sex-related differences in the normative attainment rates of developmental milestones, indicating possible distortion of the currently used unified scales. These findings suggest that using sex-specific scales may improve the accuracy of early childhood developmental surveillance.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Maturidade Sexual
/
Desenvolvimento Infantil
Limite:
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
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Infant
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Pediatrics
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Israel