ABSTRACT
This chapter presents information or guidance regarding paediatrics for use by medical, scientific or health-care professionals. For the general paediatric history, it considers pregnancy and birth history, feeding history, development history, immunisation history and so on. It is always important to check the relationship between the adult and child and to make sure that the adult you are speaking to is the legal guardian or has parental responsibility of the child. The differential for developmental delay is very large, depending on which of the four fields of development are affected. If all four fields are affected, it implies a global developmental delay. Otitis media with effusion is common in childhood and can cause delayed speech and language development and later affect performance in school. A multidisciplinary approach is vital, involving the child, parents, paediatricians, general practitioners, psychologists, speech and language therapists, teachers, special education needs co-ordinators and others.
