About our Occupational Therapy Assessments
At Hills District Speech Therapy, we strive to provide excellence in occupational therapy assessment and screening services to our current and new clients. The start of a strong therapeutic relationship with our clients begins with a warm hello and an opportunity to get to know more about them – their history, their strengths, their concerns, and needs. This is best achieved through conducting a comprehensive occupational therapy assessment. A thorough initial assessment allows us to collect all the required information, so we can then carefully analyse and interpret the findings to formulate an appropriate intervention/management plan.
What do we use to assess our clients?
Our occupational therapist uses a range of tools and sources of information to build a comprehensive profile of their clients during an initial assessment. Decisions around how an assessment should be conducted is often made by considering:
- The concerns of the client/parents/carers
- The client’s age, cultural background and life circumstances
- The setting in which the assessment will be conducted (i.e. face to face at the clinic/home/preschool/school, or online)
- What tools we have within our reach at our clinic
- The most recent, high quality research on best assessment practices.
Here are some examples of tools and procedures we may use during an initial or review assessment:
- Standardised tests
- Non-standardised tests
- Informal tests and probes
- Parent and teacher questionnaires
- Parent, teacher and health professional interviews
- Task analysis of video samples home/school
- Observations
- Physical and functional examinations of body and hands
- Digital recordings-audio & visual
When do I receive a report?
We pride ourselves in composing well-written, detailed assessment reports for our clients, their parents/carers and wider management team. The process of collating, interpreting, and reporting on findings from your child’s assessment can often mean that a report can only be provided approximately 3-4 weeks from completion of the assessment process. We also offer our clients a priority report option should the client have an upcoming meeting. Nevertheless, we are always more than happy to discuss such requests during and after your first assessment consultation.