Early Year Assessment
Utilising our inter-disciplinary team, The Child Development Team has created a unique assessment designed specifically for babies and toddlers under the age of six.
The EYA aims to provide a sensible, practical, and conservative evaluation of a child’s development. The EYA helps parents and educators better understand the child’s strengths and weaknesses and how they can best support that child. We are less interested in assigning a diagnosis, but more interested in how to facilitate a child’s development. Any diagnosis is usually provisional pending a re-evaluation at a later stage in the child’s development. The assessments are usually fun, engaging, and flexible. We aim to make the child and his or her caregiver(s) feel comfortable and safe with the process and hope to make it an empowering and positive experience.
Our EYA is personalised for each child but typically involves one of our Early Years Psychologists and one of our Early Years Therapists. The EYA also typically involves:
- A phone call with the lead psychologist to explain the process and get the assessment started.
- An in-take interview with the primary caregiver(s) at their home – it’s important to speak to the person who knows the child best.
- An observation at the child’s place of learning – it’s important to see how the child interacts with other adults and peers.
- A trip into our child-friendly clinic – it’s important to see the child outside their home environment. During this visit, we aim to make the child feel comfortable and safe. We will typically conduct an observation of the child playing with him or her self and playing with an adult and caregiver.
- Administration of some standardised activities – it’s important to understand where the child stands in comparison to their peers. We will often administer a battery of activities that helps us better understand the child’s:
- Cognitive strengths and weaknesses.
- Personal, social, and emotional development.
- Physical development.
- Communication, language, and literacy development.
- Knowledge and understanding of the work.
- Creative development.
- Pre-academic skills.
- Where relevant, we may involve our Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, or Paediatricians to further examine specific areas of development.
Once we have collected all the necessary information, we arrange a mini-conference for the specialists to discuss their findings and key recommendations. This information is recorded in a report that is discussed with the primary caregiver(s) in a feedback session conducted by the lead Early Years Psychologist. We will ensure that all our findings and recommendations are understood and a clear road map to enhancing the child’s development is initiated. We will often follow up with a phone call three to four months later to see how the family is progressing and if we need to tweak any interventions. In certain situations, we may recommend a further evaluation in approximately one year to clarify the efficacy of the recommendations and to confirm any provisional diagnoses.