Childhood Development Assessment

The Center for Human Development at Beaumont Children's is the most comprehensive facility of its kind for the diagnosis and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders. Offering the most advanced care for children from preschool through high school, it is the only center with Beaumont specialists in developmental-behavioral pediatrics, child psychology and speech and language pathology.

Our expertise includes ADD/ADHD, developmental delays, dyslexia and other learning disabilities, and autism spectrum disorders. We listen to parents, evaluate each child's strengths and weaknesses, then create individual treatment plans to help each child maximize his or her potential.

If your child just can't seem to sit still...

We will carefully evaluate his impulse control, attention span and learning style. Our experts will consider whether ADHD or something else may be the cause and help you determine the most appropriate strategies you and your school can use to help.

If your child can't seem get her homework done...

Trouble focusing and getting organized could be the result of learning, emotional or attention difficulties. Our team of expert clinicians will meet with your family to assess possible causes and find solutions.

If you're worried your child isn't making friends...

Our clinicians are experienced in many types of childhood socialization issues. We will work with you to understand your child's social difficulties. An individualized assessment will determine if further help is needed.

If your child is an underachiever who is falling behind in school...

It could be underlying learning, emotional or attention challenges. Our clinical team members customize their approach to each child as they create a pathway to academic success.

If your child's difficulty with letters and words has you worrying about dyslexia...

Early identification and intervention is crucial. Our team will help your child find success.

If you're concerned that your child isn't speaking yet...

Our team of experts will evaluate your child's language, social skills and medical status. We'll help you find solid answers to improve communication skills.

OUR APPROACH

At Beaumont's Center for Human Development, we're committed to an interdisciplinary approach to assess a child's developmental strengths and weaknesses. The perspectives of psychology and neurodevelopmental pediatrics are melded to determine recurrent themes of strengths and dysfunction in order to develop recommendations that help the child maximize his or her learning potential. Input from parents and school personnel who are familiar with the child is critical. We use interview and questionnaire tools to obtain important information about the child from key sources.

Our goal for each childhood development assessment is to carefully determine how to maximize a child's strengths and functional patterns of behavior, and to provide strategies and recommendations to minimize the impact of weaknesses and disabilities. This method tends to have a positive impact on the child rather than simply detailing a list of deficits identified as "abnormalities."

It is our hope that the childhood development assessment process creates a blueprint for the family that will enable the child to succeed in school and ultimately in life.

COMPONENTS

First, we interview the parents in order to build an information base about the child. This intake interview provides the time to review questionnaire data, history and parent concerns. From this information we determine the type of assessment necessary to answer the questions that have been raised.

Psychologists at Beaumont use observation and standardized techniques to assess verbal and non-verbal function and problem-solving.

Beaumont's educational evaluation assesses the child's processing of academic tasks and attempts to identify places where breakdowns in processing occur.

The neurodevelopmental examination also seeks to assess processing by systematically looking at the major neurodevelopmental functional areas: gross motor function, fine motor function, temporal-sequential organization, language, visual processing, visual-fine motor integration, selective attention, strategy use and emotional adjustment. The purpose of this childhood development assessment is to see how well a child can perform various tasks and to analyze how the child performs the tasks.

Through the childhood development assessment, we are interested in determining:

the child's quality of performance
the child's approach to problems
the child's ability to develop strategies
the child's capacity to deal with frustration and fatigue

After an assessment is completed, two of the professional staff members who evaluated the child meet to review all data collected and generated during the evaluation process. From this data, we develop a diagnostic assessment, a summary of impressions and recommendations for intervention strategies. When appropriate, and with the approval of the parents, school personnel are asked to present their view of the child's performance.

One of the professionals who assessed the child presents the findings of the evaluation team to the child's parents or guardian. This provides an opportunity to review the data, impressions and recommendations of the evaluation and answer questions. It also provides an opportunity for parents to give feedback to the professional staff about the degree to which the evaluation captures the critical issues and addresses them in ways which are meaningful.

At Beaumont's Center for Human Development it is our hope that assessment of the child's strengths and weaknesses help the child be more successful in school and ultimately in life, while providing a blueprint for families as they seek to incorporate helpful interventions into the child's educational program.