Clinical analysis of 1048 children with developmental delay

Children with developmental delay (DD) have a variety of problems in developmental functions. The purposes of this study were to analyze the underlying diseases and risk factors in children with different functional delays.

We collected data on 1048 children who underwent assessments of developmental function, related diseases, and risk factors. All children were classified into 6 functional delay groups: cognitive, speech, motor, pervasive, global, and non-specific DDs. Differences in related diseases and risk factors of the 6 functional delay groups were determined.

Most children had global (51.2%), speech (21.9%), and motor (13.9%) delays. Approximately 62.8% of children were associated with biological factors (19% with genetic defects or congenital anomalies, 16.5% with central nervous system lesions, 13.9% with prematurity/low birth body weight, and 13.4% with neonatal insult). We could not identify the risk factors in 36.6% of the children. Most children with motor delay had brain/neuromuscular diseases and were associated with risks of prematurity or low birth body weight; while most children with global delay had brain neuromuscular diseases or psychological/mental disorders and were associated with risks of genetic defects or congenital anomalies.

Our findings suggest that there are heterogeneous risk factors and related diseases in children with different kinds of functional delay.