Dr. Andrea Bennett Werner | Source | Board-certified Occupational Therapist at IT PRO

Andrea Bennett, OTD, a board-certified occupational therapist with extensive experience supporting families in early intervention, adds that by five months, babies should be following moving items with their eyes, looking attentively at faces, and recognizing familiar people and items from a distance.

The BIG Question: Should We Seek a Diagnosis or Wait?

As a therapist, I often work with families who have received a diagnosis; but I also commonly work with families who have simply noticed that their child needs a little more support or isn’t developing as they would have expected. For those families who either have not yet received or perhaps have not yet chosen to seek out a diagnosis, it becomes part of my job to professionally guide families through the diagnosis process.

... There can be serious costs and disadvantages to not seeking a diagnosis. First and foremost, knowing why your child is developing in a particular way can be very helpful to you as a parent. It is also extremely helpful in making sure your support team is teaching you and providing the best strategies for your child. Similarly, a diagnosis can inform educators regarding which approaches are best suited for teaching the specific children in their classroom. For example, a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) highly benefits from supports that will help them focus on the task at hand and then transition to the next task. This is because children with ASD often have a hard time learning due to their difficulty determining which information in the environment is important to focus on.