The Diagnostic Process

Abstract

A developmental evaluation can be a powerful tool for obtaining a thorough overview of your child’s development and determining whether any diagnoses are appropriate. Evaluations can be done with very young children (and even in infancy), so waiting for an evaluation until your child is school-aged often means missing out on valuable intervention time. The more information you have about your child’s difficulties, the more effectively you can address them. The process of identifying the type of provider needed will be discussed with an emphasis on how to vet providers to help ensure a quality evaluation. The components of an evaluation along with information on how to interpret the results of standardized testing will be discussed.