Neuropsychomotor development screening of Brazilian children: a systematic review of the literature

ABSTRACT

The assessment of child development through screening has been a frequent topic in research. However, little is known about the achievements and outcomes generated by such studies at the national level. With the purpose of analyzing studies that evaluated the neuropsychomotor development of Brazilian children through the Denver Development Screening Test II, a systematic review of the literature in accordance with the PRISMA recommendations was performed with search in the Medline, Lilacs, Scielo, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases, including original articles that evaluated typical and atypical Brazilian children through the Denver Test II, published between 2005 and 2015 in English and Portuguese. Results: 1,016 studies were found and 67 were selected to be fully read, resulting in 31 articles that met the criteria for inclusion. Most of the studies evaluated the development of typical children in outpatient settings, who live in the Southeastern region of the country and with ages up to 3 years old, using cross-sectional research approaches. The percentage of suspected delay or delay in development for typical children ranged from none to 46.3% and from 14.2% to 100% for atypical children. Several risk factors and high percentages of suspicions of and delays in the neuropsychomotor development of children can be noted, suggesting the need for standardized screening services that are better nationally distributed. The resulting data may imply preventive actions to the risks and delays in the development of Brazilian children.

Keywords:
Child Development; Screening