M.D. Daniel E. Shanks, M.D. is a Pediatric Neurologist with Nemours Children's Clinic, Jacksonville. The developmental disabilities are a group of disorders differentiated by the pattern of delay among developmental streams. The four streams of development include language, problem solving, motor, and social.
Cerebral palsy is a disorder of motor development.
Common to the developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy is a static encephalopathy which is further characterized as a disorder of movement and posture associated with an abnormal pattern of persistent primitive reflexes and delayed evolution of postural reactions and consequent motor milestones. Although the risk of cerebral palsy is increased 30 fold compared to term infants, the vast majority of children who are VLBW do not have cerebral palsy. This article will describe the classification of cerebral palsy, features which may alert the primary physician when to consider the possibility of cerebral palsy, examples of common conditions which may mimic cerebral palsy, and emerging trends in technology which offers a greater variety of therapeutic options. Classification Not all children with cerebral palsy have spastic quadriplegia. The classification is based on the predominant motor pattern.