What to expect from an Early Childhood intervention Assessment
At our 1-year appointment we discovered we were behind in several of our milestones and excelling in 1. Our little bubba is a champion walker. He has been walking since about 10 months and now at 13 months he can already climb onto the couch unassisted. While his gross motor is doing great he is behind in other skills according to his pediatrician like talking, fine motor, and social and communication. Because of this our pediatrician referred us for early childhood intervention aka ECI.
We had our first ECI assessment and this is how it went.
The Assessment
Our pediatrician sent in the referral to our local ECI, and they contacted us about 2 weeks later, and set up our assessment date. For our area its about a 1 month wait to be seen for the assessment. When we sent up the assessment they asked what my biggest concerns were, and for us I told her speech, so she had a speech language pathologist or SLP join the assessment team.
The initial assessment took about an hour. First Keri our ECI coordinator arrived and introduced herself and we started going over the initial paperwork, costs, etc. The assessment is mainly parent interview and child observation for our son’s age. After a while the SLP and her trainee (they called ahead of time and asked if a trainee could observe) joined. They staggered the entry times so my kiddo wouldn’t get too overwhelmed with three new people all at once. While I answered the questions the SLP engaged our son with different games/activities to see where he was at developmentally.
Qualifying for ECI
Because of his age they used a combination of their observations and the answers I gave to their questions to determine if he qualified for intervention services. In most of his milestones he was either on target or slightly ahead. The ones he was behind on were communication and language. Which we expected.
Just because you are behind in a skill doesn’t mean you necessarily qualify for early intervention services. You have to be a certain amount behind in order to qualify. I don’t know if the rating changes from place to place, but for the ECI team assessing us we had to be a 25% or more behind to qualify. We qualified for both the milestones he was behind in.
Getting Assigned an ECI
We were assigned an Early Interventionist for our therapy. Even though Bubba was behind in speech the most, they thought that he would benefit from a general early interventionist more. I thought we would be getting a Speech Language Pathologist, but right now in our area there is at least a 2 week wait to even get on their list. So, we decided we were fine starting this way. We start in a few weeks, and we are excited but nervous. I’ll write more about how the session go after we have a few.
My Final Thoughts
At first I was a little disappointed that my son needed ECI for speech. I felt like I had failed him. Working from home has allowed me to spend a lot of time with him that I wouldn’t be able to if he were in daycare. However, he is less exposed to social situations and because of a mother’s natural tendency to anticipate needs I wasn’t giving him many opportunities for speech. The ladies who came to do our assessment assured me that there was nothing I did wrong, and while they did make me feel better I still sometimes feel bad. I am going to be channeling that energy into making sure we take all the advice from our ECI therapist and integrate it into our daily lives.
Any names used in this post were used with permission or changed to protect anonymity.