Once we have made contact and decided on an assessment we can usually offer this within a couple of weeks, at a time that is convenient for both of us. We come to your home if we can, otherwise assessments can also take place at my home-based clinic which is all geared to working with children and equipped with lots of fun toys and games. They will usually play whilst we chat to you to find out more about their development and observe them playing and interacting. After a while they are usually nice and relaxed and we can get on with more direct assessment. This is likely to be through toys if they are young, and more picture-based if they are a little older. With slightly older children, or younger children where we need more information, we might used more substantial picture-based tests. But don’t worry, we’re really adept and making children feel relaxed and like they’re having a good time. Parents often worry that their child won’t talk during the assessment. We don’t tend to find this is an issue, we are pretty good at getting them to warm up!

At the end of the session we give you verbal feedback there and then, and try as much as possible to tell you what is going on and what is needed. Sometimes we will need to go away and look over our results to get a clearer idea. Often we will decide there and then what the next course of action should be, which would be one or more of the following: