Step 4: The Assessment Process

The assessment process can take several shapes. Whatever shape it takes, it is very likely that your child will be seen by more than one professional, from more than one field.

Some of the professionals you are likely to see are listed below. Please note that your child will not be seen by all of these professionals. Which professionals you visit and for how long will depend on the condition/disorder that your child may have.

• Mental health processional/diagnostician
  • Psychologist
  • Psychiatrist
  • School psychologist (if your child is already in school
• Professional from the allied field
  • Speech and language pathologist
• Professionals from the medical filed
  • Occupational therapist/sensory integration therapist
  • Physical therapist
  • Geneticist
  • Orthopedist
  • Nurse Clinicians or Clinical Nurse Specialists
  • Other…
• Special education field
  • Special educator/resource teacher
  • Early interventionist
  • Infant development consultant/Aboriginal infant development consultant
  • Supported child development consultant/Aboriginal supported child development consultant
  • Behavior interventionist/consultant
  • Other

It is important to note:

• Your child will sometimes see one specialist more than once in order to complete the assessment process;
• Some specialists will not have any answers for you, and they may end up referring you to “yet another specialist;”
• Your child’s journey with some specialists will last beyond the assessment process, because they are likely to be the interventionists who will have an on-going relationship with you and your child.  

As stated above, this part of your journey can be the most painful because you will finally have your feelings confirmed (something you have kept hoping would not happen).

It may not always be easy to deal with these professionals. Some of them may even give you information that directly and completely contradicts the information that you were given by another professional.

Unfortunately, at this point in time in BC, and elsewhere, professionals who are part of an assessment team do not always work with each other.  This can sometimes result in mixed messages being sent to a family that is already going through a hard time.

We hope that this does not happen to you, but if it does, perhaps reading about the journeys of other parents could help you put see things in different ways.

Here is a websites where you can read about the journeys of parents like you.

• Bandaides and Blackboards: This website is mainly for parents of children who are sick all the time, but what they experience could very easily be applied to the experience of all parents who have children who are developing in a different way.

Figure 1. Worried