Medical Checkups for 5-year-olds: Use Results to Support Children with Developmental Disabilities

Editorial

15:40 JST, November 29, 2024

Medical checkups for infants and toddlers are important for children to be able to grow up healthy both mentally and physically. As the birth rate declines, it is hoped the system will be further improved.

Currently, municipalities are legally required to provide medical checkups for children at the ages of 1½ and 3 years. Checkups are also conducted for all children before they enter elementary school.

In addition to these checkups, the Children and Families Agency has come out with a policy to provide more generous subsidies to local governments that conduct health checkups for 5-year-olds with the aim of spreading checkups for children of that age. This is aimed at detecting developmental disabilities and supporting children with such disabilities at an early stage.

Developmental disabilities are believed to be rooted in brain function, and they include autism spectrum disorder, in which the child has difficulty interacting with others, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, in which the child cannot continue to pay attention for a long time.

Children at age 3 are too young for developmental disabilities to be diagnosed. In addition, even if children are diagnosed to have such disabilities just prior to enrollment in elementary school, they do not have enough time to prepare to smoothly handle school life. That is why 5 is considered the appropriate age at which to diagnose such disabilities.

Medical checkups for 5-year-olds examine not only physical development, but also emotional and behavioral tendencies, such as “strong obsessiveness” and “proneness to tantrums.” If a developmental disability is identified early, education and support should be provided in consideration of the child’s characteristics in daily life and at school.

For example, if a child is not good at perceiving the wishes of others, it is important for teachers and others to give specific instructions.

If a child with a developmental disability is left unattended, they may fail to habituate themselves to group behavior due to their lack of cooperation and restlessness, leading to their nonattendance at school. Early support may be an effective measure to prevent children from being chronically absent from school.

Some local governments are conducting their own medical checkups for 5-year-olds, reportedly with tangible results.

In the city of Taketa, Oita Prefecture, public health nurses and others with expertise in developmental disabilities provide assistance by offering consultations to parents and guardians and sharing information with nursery schools and schools as well. As a result, many children with signs of developmental disabilities have been able to attend regular classes. The number of children who are chronically absent from school has reportedly decreased as well.

However, only 14% of local governments nationwide have introduced medical checkups for 5-year-olds. This is believed to be due to tight budgets and shortages of pediatricians.

Although medical checkups for 5-year-olds are widely conducted in Tottori Prefecture, some local governments there that do not have enough doctors or relevant staff are devising ways to provide them by focusing specifically on children with worrisome behaviors, rather than conducting them for all children.

It is hoped that each local government will use these precedents as references. The central government should support such medical checkups and the development of human resources who can help children with developmental disabilities.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Nov. 29, 2024)