7 Family-friendly OT Assessments for Early Intervention
Best practice in Early Intervention entails a family-focused approach to intervention. Does your current assessment process align with this? Read this blog post to learn about 7 family-friendly OT assessments that allow you to partner with families right from the start. The best part…all of these assessments are teletherapy-compatible!
Since having adopted a parent coaching model of service delivery several years ago, I’m continuously striving to improve my ability to serve families and children.
One area of my practice that seems to not always align with a family-focused lens is the assessment process.
In my opinion, the assessment process can sometimes feel cold and anxiety-producing for our families.
Some families have concerns about their child beforehand and some may have been recommended to Early Intervention by their medical teams.
No matter what the referral reason, it can feel overwhelming and intimidating to have a team of professionals scrutinizing your child’s every move and behavior.
But this process doesn’t have to be anxiety-producing…and selecting the right assessment tool can help to lessen this burden and partner with the families right from the start.
After all, assessment shouldn’t be just about identifying children’s delays in development….it should be about identifying a child’s and family’s strengths, culture, priorities, and areas of support that are important to that family.
Here are 7 of my favorite assessments that help empower our families as the experts in their child and involve them in the therapy process from the get-go!
7 Family-friendly Early Intervention assessment tools
1. Developmental Assessment of Young Children (DAYC-2)
Age Range: Birth to 5
Skills assessed: All 5 domains: Motor, Cognitive, Social-emotional, Adaptive, Communication
Format: Norm-referenced. Observation, Parent interview, direct assessment. Hand scoring.
Administration time: 10-20 minutes each domain
Where to purchase: Pearson
Cost: Kits from $375
2. Sensory Processing Measure-Preschool (SPM-P)
Age Range: 2-5 years old
Skills assessed: Sensory Processing
Format: Parent/teacher rating scale. Norm-referenced. Online forms, scoring and computerized reports available through WPS.
Administration time: 15-20 minutes
Where to purchase: WPS
Cost: Kits from $196
3. Sensory profile 2: Infant/toddler/child
Age Range: Infant-birth-6months; Toddler-7-35 months; Child-3-14.11 years
Skills assessed: Sensory processing
Format: Parent/teacher rating scale. Norm-referenced. Online forms, scoring and computerized reports available through WPS.
Administration time: 5-20 minutes
Where to purchase: WPS
Cost: Kits from $299
4. Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP)
Age Range: 0-3 years old; HELP 3-6-year-olds
Skills assessed: Cognitive, Language, Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Social-Emotional, and Self-Help.
Format: Family-centered curriculum-based assessment. Not standardized. Parent/therapist interview and observations. Hand scoring.
Administration time: 5-10 minutes for each domain.
Where to purchase: Vort
Cost: Kits from $64.95 for the manual; $3.50 per checklist form
5. The Roll Evaluation of Activities of Life
Age Range: 2.0-18.11
Skills assessed: ADLs and IADLs
Format: 4 point Likert scale. Standardized. Hand scoring.
Administration time: 15-20 minutes for each test
Where to purchase: Pearson
Cost: Kits from $112
6. The Developmental Profile (DP-4)
Age Range: birth-21 years
Skills assessed: All five domains: Cognitive, communication, motor, social-emotional and adaptive.
Format: Standardized; parent interview, caregiver checklist, teacher checklist, clinician rating. Online or printed versions available.
Administration time: 20-40 minutes
Where to purchase: WPS
Cost: Kits from $399
7. Transdisciplinary Play Based Assessment, 2nd Ed (TPBA-2)
Age Range: birth to 6 years
Skills assessed: sensorimotor, emotional and social, communication, and cognitive
Format: Play-based assessment. Child-motivated play. Family is involved in the process. Strengths-based. Hand written report based on observations. Training available through Brookes.
Administration time: 60-90 minutes
Where to purchase: Brookes
Cost: 54.95
By no means is this meant to be an exhaustive list of Early Intervention assessments, just a few that I feel fit well with the parent coaching service delivery model in Early Intervention.
Did your favorite assessment make the list? Please share below if there are others that you’d like to see added to this list.
Want to learn more about performing Early Intervention assessments?
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