COLLABORATION OF A PEDIATRICIAN, SPEECH THERAPIST, AND DEFECTOLOGIST IN THE EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF SPEECH AND PSYCHOMOTOR DEVELOPMENT DELAYS IN CHILDREN

Abstract. The early identification and management of speech and psychomotor developmental delays in early childhood are critical for preventing long-term cognitive and social impairments. However, the traditional sequential diagnostic pathway often leads to significant delays in intervention. This research aims to comprehensively evaluate the clinical efficacy of a synchronous multidisciplinary team approach, specifically integrating the expertise of pediatricians, speech therapists, and defectologists in the primary diagnostic phase. Employing a prospective comparative methodology, the study monitored a cohort of preschool-aged children presenting with suspected developmental delays. The integrated literature review highlights the paradigm shift from isolated medical screening to holistic bio-psycho-pedagogical assessments, emphasizing the intense neuroplasticity of the first thousand days of life. Empirical results demonstrate that the synchronous collaborative model drastically reduces the latency period between initial suspicion and definitive diagnosis. Furthermore, the multidisciplinary approach significantly increases diagnostic accuracy, effectively differentiating between isolated speech delays, global developmental delays, and emerging autism spectrum disorders, which are frequently misclassified in isolated pediatric settings. The discussion emphasizes the unique and complementary roles of each specialist, wherein the pediatrician excludes somatic and neurological etiologies, the speech therapist assesses linguistic and phonetic constructs, and the defectologist evaluates broader cognitive and adaptive milestones. Ultimately, the study concludes that restructuring primary pediatric care to facilitate immediate interdisciplinary collaboration is an essential healthcare reform required to leverage critical windows of neurodevelopment, thereby fundamentally improving the lifelong trajectory of children with psychomotor and speech delays.