Parents worry that they child is not developing fast enough and think it may be a sign of larger problems. Here are the simple facts.
A general misconception many people have about children is that there is a predetermined age at which all kids will develop certain abilities. Crawling, walking, talking and so on are all levels of development that people look at as being expected to happen at certain ages, while in fact there is no guarantee as to when any child will go through those stages. The simple fact is that all children are different and they all progress at different rates. All the ages associated with certain stages are just the approximate age. There is nothing wrong with a child who takes a few extra months to learn to walk. It reflects nothing at all on the intelligence or health of the child.
When you take a group of infants or toddlers all at about the same age you will clearly see great differences in their level of development. Generally by the age of one a child should be walking, yet in a group of one year-olds you will have those who have been walking for a few months, those who are just starting to walk and those who are months away from doing it. Yet you can not determine any differences in intelligence due to this. It is a purely physical developmental stage that is unrelated to the child's smarts. Children often just do not see the point in learning to walk and so have no desire to try. Other times there may by some strength issues causing a problem with learning the skill and the child may need some muscle training. There is really nothing to worry about if the child is a few months behind the standard for his or her age in such things.
In the past the misconception of such ideas did lead to people using such developmental idea as justification to consider a child unintelligent due to a child being behind in some stage of development. Kids who had speech problems due to physical issues might get labeled 'stupid' because they could not speak as well as other kids of the same age. It would just be that those children would need extra attention given to learning how to vocalize due to issues unrelated to intelligence. There are just times when a child needs to learn how to talk or move different than other children due to their bodies being different on a muscular level.
Such things should not really be considered a handicap, since most are not really limiting once you find a new way to teach the child those skills. The child can be perfectly healthy and highly intelligent, but due to certain aspects outside of anyone's control they need special attention given to various stages of physical development.
It all comes down to the simple fact that all children are different and no two children will develop all skills at the same rate. In teaching skills one must look at the child and figure out what motivation and assistance the child will need that is unique for that child.
