Before the Direct Child Assessment
Suggested Steps
1. Begin the family-centered interview process through home or center visits, and
the telephone. During the interview:
a. Explain the purpose of the assessment, what to expect, and options for how family
members can participate as part of the assessment team.
b. Get a general idea of the child's key milestones, e.g., how does he move around,
what toys does he play with, how does he communicate.
c. Identify family's primary concerns, priorities, expectations and preferences related
to the assessment.
2. With written parental permission, collect, review, and collaborate with other
professionals and the family about other information pertinent to the current assessment
of the child and family, e.g.:
a. Medical history, contraindications, and current conditions.
b. Previous developmental evaluations, assessments, screenings.
c. Other information family feels is important to the assessment.
3. Secure necessary releases and therapy prescriptions to conduct direct assessments.
4. Select the most appropriate HELP assessment recording form to use during the direct
child assessment, i.e., HELP Strands or HELP Checklist (the Strands are recommended.)
The HELP Charts are more often used for communicating progress to
families after the assessing with the Strands.
5. Highlight several skills above and below the child's approximate developmental
age on the HELP Strands (or Checklist or Charts) within each developmental domain
you anticipate assessing.
6. Locate the skills you anticipate assessing in Inside HELP to prepare and plan
for the direct child assessment.
a. Review relevant strand Prefaces which correspond to selected skills.
b. Review the definitions, credit criteria, suggested assessment procedures, and
materials for each skill.
c. Select and prepare for five-to-ten play and daily activity situations (from "Example
Observation Opportunities") to include in the direct assessment. Choose activities
which are likely to
elicit several skills concurrently across developmental domains, e.g., playing with
a ball or
rattle, looking in a mirror, diaper changing.
7. You can record notes from this planning and review phase directly onto the HELP
Strands or Checklist, or on separate note paper to take into the direct assessment.
HELPful Tips
Use the HELP Family-Centered Interview or review and select Parent Questions from
various strand Prefaces in Inside HELP.
From the collected information:
* Determine assessment team (i.e. disciplines), format (e.g., multidisciplinary,
arena, or interdisciplinary), assessment content, methods, and adaptations
* Get a general idea of the child's current development to help target where to begin
the assessment.
Some states require some therapists to have a prescription.
Use the HELP Strands if the child has
specific disabilities or displays apparent "uneven" development.
Use the HELP Strands "loose leaf" format (Prod. No. 158-B) if more than
one
discipline will be assessing at one time.
The skills you highlight will be based upon the information gathered in
steps 1 and 2 above.
If you are using HELP Strands, go directly to the corresponding strand in Inside HELP
to locate the specific skills.
If you are using HELP Checklist or HELP Charts, use the Skills Index on page 376
of Inside HELP to locate the highlighted skills you anticipate assessing.
You do not need to assess all skills or strands. Observation of one activity is likely
to provide information about the child's development across many strands.
As you become more familiar with HELP, your preliminary preparation time and notes
will be reduced.
