More than 400,000 child development screenings were performed in the past year, discovering more than 25,000 suspected developmental delays, since the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) launched the screening service for children younger than seven on July 1 last year, the agency said yesterday.
A four-year-old girl nicknamed Hsiao-an (小安) appeared to be growing normally, but her mother observed that she often had mood swings and would easily lose her temper, such as bursting out crying when playing with blocks, scribble frantically when trying to draw and often fall down when walking.
Pediatrician Mai Jian-fang (麥建方) said after receiving a child development screening, Hsiao-an was evaluated to have normal language and social development, but struggled with certain behaviors such as hopping on one leg, cutting paper with scissors and drawing, and was suspected to have fine motor skill delays.
Photo: Lin Chih-yi, Taipei Times
After Hsiao-an was referred to an interdisciplinary assessment center for child development, she was confirmed to have hand-eye coordination issues because she had a significant difference in eyesight between her two eyes — up to four diopters, he said.
The girl’s motor skills and mood swings improved rapidly after she was proscribed corrective glasses and rehabilitation, he added.
The service offers six screening sessions per child before they reach the age of seven to assess gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language development and social development.
As of the end of last month, a total of 402,594 screenings were conducted in the past year, finding more than 25,000 suspected developmental delay cases — or 6.3 percent of the total — and also about 63,000 cases that needed follow-up and healthcare instructions, HPA Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) said.
The screenings were conducted by more than 2,600 pediatricians, family doctors and doctors in the Holistic Physicians for Young Children program at more than 1,200 healthcare facilities across the nation, the HPA said.
HPA official Lin Yu-hsuan (林宇旋) said most of the suspected development delay cases struggled in language and cognitive skills, accounting for 75.6 percent, followed by social development at 29 percent, fine motor skills at 28.8 percent, and gross motor skills at 17.3 percent.
Doctors refer them to an interdisciplinary assessment center for child development, with the number of centers increasing from 52 in 2022 to 88 this year, including 17 designated key hospitals that are not allowed to reject referred cases, Wu said.
The centers are required to let the referred cases book an assessment appointment within 30 days and provide a comprehensive assessment report to the HPA within 45 days, he said, adding that the compliance rate was more than 90 percent last year and hopefully it would reach 100 percent this year.
Mackay Memorial Hospital Child Intervention and Developmental Assessment Center director Chen Hui-ju (陳慧如) said sometimes the assessment of development delay is very complicated, demanding professional knowledge and time.
As many centers are established in hospitals, and many are facing a shortage of healthcare workers, she hopes the government can provide more resources to help retain workers and ensure high-quality assessments, she said.
The HPA recommends three steps for parents to follow — first, refer to the Children’s Health Handbook (兒童健康手冊) and make daily observations of their child’s development; second, use the six screening services according to the recommended schedule; and third, if the child is suspected to have developmental delays, get an assessment at interdisciplinary
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
The Ministry of Culture yesterday officially launched the “We TAIWAN” cultural program on Osaka’s Nakanoshima sandbank, with the program’s mascot receiving overwhelming popularity. The cultural program, which runs from Aug. 2 to 20, was designed to partner with and capitalize on the 2025 World Expo that is being held in Osaka, Japan, from April 13 to Oct. 13, the ministry said. On the first day of the cultural program, its mascot, a green creature named “a-We,” proved to be extremely popular, as its merch was immediately in high demand. Long lines formed yesterday for the opening
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
RSS