The client is ten years old male referred to sexual and physical
trauma. He was also having developmental delays such as limited interaction and
communication skill compared to his age mates.
The cognitive, emotional, physical and social developmental stages
help to identify developmental delays that limit the interaction, communication
and behavioural deficit among children. The multiple theories provide evidence
regarding the sexual and physical pathologies in the behaviour of the patient.
The Erickson Psychosocial stages of development, Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of
needs, Jean Piaget theory of cognitive development, and Trauma and attachment
theory provides a clear description of every stage of human development and
pathologies. The question regarding developmental milestones would be asked by
the mother or caregiver of the client.
Abraham Maslow postulated the theory of hierarchal needs. According
to him, the very first need of human being is a biological need, which is
mandatory for the essence of life. If a child of deprived of basic needs in the
prenatal, postnatal or early stages of his life, his physical development might
deteriorate. As a result of a lack of nutrients, many cognitive and behavioural
deficits may occur. The second stage is safety and security; the child feels
secure and safe in the presence of caretaker and parents as the above case
indicated that the child had traumatic experience due to his father. It can be
assumed that his safety needs have been in threatening that leads to limited
interaction and communication issues. The third need is love and belongingness.
The lack of love and belongings leads to isolation and other psychological
disturbances. The fourth stage is the self-esteem stage if the child feels of
self-esteem due to parental rejection or parental abuse or neglect. As a
result, he may suffer from physical and sexual trauma.
Piaget theory of cognitive development comprised of four stages.
The sensory-motor stage preoperational stage, operational and formal stage. All
the four stages provide a detailed description of each developmental stage,
which millstones a child in each stage. Such as in the sensory-motor stages,
the child explores the world through his senses and mouth. In the
preoperational stage, the child develops the egocentrism. The egocentrisms
reflect that the child cannot view the world from others perspective. This
stage s very crucially as the child is considered more self-centred. The
operational stage the child developed the concrete thinking and began to
understand the complex concept to some extent, in the formal stage, the child
began to develop the logical and abstract thinking.
In the current case, the child is ten years old and stands in the
operational stage of the Piaget, but has not achieved the milestones, such as
his communication and understanding with the world is limited. The Erickson
stage of psychosocial development provides an understanding of how each stage
is crucial in the psychological and sexual development of the child. The trust
vs mistrust stage develops the secure vs insecure attachment styles towards the
caregiver. The child considers that other people will always be there to
support him. If he finds a lack of support, the crises began to start, and as a
result, he develops the mistrust, insecurity and fear. All these psychological
aspect increases with the passage of time and the child develop the anxious or
antisocial personality in the later life. The second stage of autonomy vs shame
and doubt/guilt is the second stage of psychosocial development. The child in
this stage strives to develop personal skill and independence. The parental
support to provide freedom, appreciation and love for accomplishing their task
lead to the degree of virtue.
In contrast, the lack of support and freedom and overly criticism
make the child doubtful about his skills. The third stage is initiative vs
guilt, the stage of assertiveness. The children interacted with peers in
schools and strived to take the initiative role in play activities. If they
provide opportunities to take the lead to control the activities and make an
informed decision, they develop positive incline for decision making.
Otherwise, they began to mistrust their ability to take control of situation
and decision making. Another important stage is industry vs inferiority, that
deals with competence among children. In this stage, the child began to play
the role of student, and teacher-student interaction develops a need for approval.
The teacher asks a student multiple questions and the child answer
the questions to feel competent. If the child could not answer the question, he
develops the inferiority complex, which further psychological issues. In the
above case, they must have been fixation at any stage of the psychosocial
development that leads him towards psychological issues. Attachment theory
describes the parent-child attachment patent. According to the theory, there
are four basic attachment style, authoritative, authoritarian, submissive and
negligence. The authoritative parenting does not allow a child to make their
decision and practice strict parenting regardless of child needs, wants and
desires. Such parenting style leads to insecure attachment with the child. The
other types of parenting style lead to secure attachment style to some extent.
The trauma theory also suggests that any obnoxious experience or event
adversely affect the development of the child. The signs of trauma are
significant to eliminate the development of the child. On the basis of above
theories, the questions would be asked, and after initial diagnoses, the child
would be referred to a doctor for further assessment. As the child was having
the developmental and psychosocial issues, he will be referred to the child
psychologist or the pediatric who deals with the developmental issues of the
child. Multiple centres are working for the assessment and management of the
child problem; the child will be referred to the one of the following centres.
Government and non-government services
• Centre for intellectual
and developmental disabilities is the leading research centre that deals with
the assessment and management of the developmental issues of the children.
• Centre for developmental
disorder focus on autism, intellectual disability, down syndrome and numerous
other developmental disorders impact on daily living and propose unique
interventions plan.
• Centre for intellectual
and developmental disabilities research aimed to conduct high-quality research
for the betterment of children with developmental disabilities.
• Child developmental
services deal with the special developmental needs of the children to enhance
their potential.
• The Tizard centre
provides the best services to provide the high-quality care to the children’s
with developmental disabilities.
• Children identity
developmental services provide assistant to the children to identify their
identities.
• Child development centre
works for the treatment and assessment of the children with developmental
needs.
• Developmental behaviour
pediatric clinic diagnose the children with developmental delays.
• Newham child
developmental centre strives to meet the multiple developmental needs of the
children.
• Development vision
clinic assists the children with developmental vision issues and other
developmental delays.
• The centre for
disability studies conducts scientific research for the management of of child
developmental issues.
• Child development centre
fulfils the needs of the paediatrics with developmental dilemmas.
• Developmental service
resources centre provides support to the children having developmental
disabilities
• The lighthouse child
development centre aimed to benefit the parent and children dealing with
developmental delays.
Community services for children with special need are working effectively. The goal of such services revolve around parenting a child with special needs. Raising a child with special need should be promoted in developing countries to promote mental health for adolescent, young adults and children.