Screening and Evaluation for Early Intervention

Having just completed a series of blogs on transition out of early intervention, I thought it would be good to start talking about entering into early intervention.  Where to start is somewhat difficult with this topic, there is so much that parents want to know when they suspect their child might need early intervention services.  So, I'm going to take the easy way out and recommend a recent post by one of our recommended blogs:  Early Intervention Insights.

In a post entitled Child Evaluations are a Tool for Adults, Ali-K gives a fairly detailed overview of the process of identifying when a child needs early intervention services beginning with a parent whose child was referred by a physician.  Physician referral is probably the most common way that parents initially hear about the early intervention system and, as Ali-K notes, their first encounter with the complexities involved in identifying whether a child needs services and what types of services the child might need.  

I also want to highlight a discussion thread on our community of practice site that began on Saturday entitled Early Childhood Evaluations:  A Parent's Perspective.  This thread focuses on the question of what strategies have parents found helpful in meetings on evaluation.  The discussion has just started getting some good responses (plenty of time to add your two cents worth).  So far a summary of the tips (from parents in the discussion) include:

• Ask for a copy of the full evaluation results in addition to the summaries.
  
• Look at the What to Expect books--they may give you an idea of what is usually considered "typical" development at this point in a child's life.  But also remember the range of "typical" is very broad.
  
• Make a list of your concerns, goals for your child, and what you think might be done to meet those goals.  Prioritize your list, but start discussion at the meeting with a couple of the easier issues to get the ball rolling.
  
• Recognize that the evaluation team will most likely discuss your child's "deficits," and prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for these discussions.   They may say "deficits," but only because they are trying to identify the areas where your child could benefit from services.
  

Feel free to join the coversation and offer your own perspective and experience--here or in the CoP.