This hits the nail on the head - nobody at all wants to hear about other "slightly ahead" children and such, these things are not useful. People are looking for

This hits the nail on the head - nobody at all wants to hear about other "slightly ahead" children and such, these things are not useful. People are looking for major deficits. I know for a fact this is what I was looking for with my son, who is 4 years old with the speech/language skills of a 2 year old -- these things were absolutely important, especially when there were people in his life who were totally in denial. Thanks to these measures, my son can get the help he needs through a speech and language therapist. Impossible if there was nothing to tell everybody that something is wrong. With my daughter, who is 5 months, I also regularly look up the same things. It's more of an assurance than anything. It's important to stress that they are a rough measure. As I said earlier, looking out for major deficits, the big red flags. Slightly ahead in one area, a bit behind in another means nothing - each child develops at different paces and at different speeds and these little over-achievements or under-achievements. These things, bundled with a parent like me, is enough to make me fret and get worried but the more it happens the more you learn that if there's no big red flags, the little yellow/green ones are nothing to worry about. I've lost a few nights sleep before learning this one.