A well-child developmental assessment of a 3 year old girl reveals that she is able to dress herself and pedal a tricycle; however, her vocabulary skills consist of “mama”, “dada”, and “doggie”. You would classify her development as:
A. Constitutional developmental delay
B. Completely normal
C. Developmental deviancy
D. Developmental dissociation
The correct answer is C. Developmental deviancy.
Developmental deviancy refers to a significant delay or abnormality in one or more areas of development, while other areas may be developing normally. In this case, the 3-year-old girl’s vocabulary skills are significantly delayed, as she only uses three words (“mama”, “dada”, and “doggie”), whereas typically developing children at this age have a vocabulary of around 1,000 words and can put two words together to form simple sentences.