Early Intervention

The evaluators will assess your child in the 5 major developmental domains and will include information on your child’s health history, family history and/or developmental delays or disabilities.  The 5 domains include:

Cognitive– How infants and toddlers interact with the world around them using all their senses.  They learn to think and understand behavior and how it affects their environment.  Problem-solving, memory, inferencing, trial-and-error exploration, imitation, as well as play and pre-academic skills are a few of the necessary skills within this domain that affect all other areas of development.

Communication– Language development follows a predictable pattern.  You’ll find that a baby’s language develops from coos and grunts in the first 12 months, to first words around 10-12 months, to two word sentences around 18-24 month and, finally, to whole sentences around age 3.  In the first 12 months, babies also communicate with you by crying, smiling, or using body gestures (like pointing to something).  Communication and language development means learning how to use nonverbal as well as verbal (spoken) actions to express want, needs or ideas.

Adaptive– Self-help skills your child uses for daily living, including feeding, toileting, dressing and taking personal responsibility.

Social-Emotional– These skills allow children to engage in meaningful social interactions with their family and others in the environment.  It entails social awareness, social competence and social relations.

Physical– This includes fine and gross motor development.  Gross motor skills include how your child uses his arms, legs, and whole body. Skills such as, rolling, sitting, crawling, walking and running will be assessed, as well as balance, coordination, strength, muscle tone and range of motion.  Fine motor skills involve the smaller muscles in the fingers, toes, eyes and other areas.  Skills such as drawing, writing, pointing and grasping objects will be assessed.