EVALUATION PROCESS

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Once your intake meeting has been held, an evaluation will be scheduled at a time that’s convenient for you. Our evaluation services are available to all eligible children suspected of developmental delays. Experienced NYS licensed evaluators provide screening and evaluation services at the Center, including:

  • Speech Language Pathology (Speech, Language, Oral-Motor and/or Feeding)

  • Occupational Therapy (Fine motor, Sensory Processing)

  • Physical Therapy (Gross motor, coordination)

The SMILE Center provides comprehensive Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and Speech-Language Pathology (including Feeding) evaluation services. We provide evaluations for children in the Early Intervention program as well as private/advanced screening/evaluation for children. We utilize a variety of standardized and non-standardized assessment tools as well as questionnaires, detailed clinical observations and thorough parent/caregiver interview. We aim to determine the child’s most accurate level of functioning across all areas of performance in all domains involved.   We understand that each child is different and therefore modify each evaluation process to meet the specific needs of the child.  We make every effort for the process to be fun and feel like play for the child, and allow him/her as much time as needed to be comfortable and present their abilities.  An evaluation generally takes 1 to 2 hours per discipline.

All Early Intervention evaluations are conducted under the NYS/DOH standards and regulations.  Your service coordinator will guide you through these details but please set up an intake meeting with us beforehand so we can let you know of any pertinent details on our end as well.

EVALUATION PROCESS

We kindly ask that families bring in copies of any previous evaluations.  These may be reports by clinicians, neurologists, developmental pediatricians, optometrists, audiologists etc. If these reports are dated within the last year, we may not need to do an additional evaluation at The SMILE Center.

You will also receive various questionnaires depending on the needs of your child. We respectfully ask that you take your time and fill them out as thoroughly and accurately as possible and then fax, email or drop them off to us prior to the scheduled evaluation. This is a very important part of the process and helps us to be as prepared as possible to meet your child. Prior to the evaluation you will also have an opportunity to speak on the phone with the clinician who will be evaluating your child, and will have an opportunity to speak in detail about your questions and concerns. We provide this opportunity to speak directly to the therapist without the child present because during the evaluation, we do not want the child to overhear us discussing the things that are difficult for them and have any feelings of negativity.

We prefer to have to have the parent/s or caregiver/s present during the evaluation process when possible, especially with younger children.  It often helps the child to feel more comfortable therefore allow us to see the most accurate representation of his/her performance.  Additionally your presence allows for collaboration and more detailed discussion.  That being said, we honor all family’s decisions to be present or not.

In most cases, the evaluation process is completed in a single visit.  If the child’s evaluation involves multiple disciplines, it may be spread out over two days depending on the needs of the child. Once the evaluation is complete, the reports will be written and provided to the family within two weeks.  A follow-up call then takes place to thoroughly review the findings and recommendations of the team.  The family then has time to process the information, consider their options and make a decision about how to move forward.  The SMILE Center will gladly answer any questions during this process but strongly prefers to leave the decision making to the family.