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Jean Grant's avatar

loved this :) i have similar tendencies toward control, and a 4yo daughter. i'm finding parenting in general is just one long practice of letting go, little by little - and i hate it!

malatela's avatar

My son didn't walk until 17 months. Later I learned that the CDC guidelines saying 18 months is a red flag for developmental disability was set too late based on the actual distribution of data. He was diagnosed with autism at 7.

A few papers showing the data-informed changes to developmental milestones:

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/144/6/e20190374/76997/Establishing-New-Norms-for-Developmental?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9680195/

In reality, >97% of kids are walking by 18 months, so they instead recommend putting the "early warning" at about 75th percentile, which is around 15 months.

I know this comment is annoying but in retrospect I wished I had been aware of this at the time so the later diagnosis didn't come as such a shock, because he had "passed" his developmental milestones. The majority of kids who don't walk until 18 months are of course fine, but the risk is substantially elevated compared to earlier walkers.