What To Expect At Your First Visit

At Created to Thrive, we are committed to ensuring your child’s optimal health & well-being through our provision of comprehensive developmental and behavioral evaluations.

Before Your Appointment

Please ensure that you (& any other informants) have completed all intake paperwork & any questionnaires that Dr. Allen may have requested – at least 1 week prior to your child’s scheduled appointment.

Please ensure that Dr. Allen has received all pertinent outside medical (hospital or clinic), therapy & educational records – at least 1 week prior to your child’s scheduled appointment.

Typically, this includes the following:
– Birth History &/or NICU discharge summary (if relevant)
– All relevant medical clinic records (from your child’s PCP and & other medical providers)
– Previous therapy evaluations (at least the most recent, ideally the last few to establish a trend)
– Results of previous neurodevelopmental/developmental/behavioral diagnostic evaluations
– Any pertinent educational records (if relevant) including your child’s: Full Individual Evaluation (FIE) & Individual Education Plan (IEP), Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP), Grade reports &/or any other documents that you feel are relevant to your child’s assessment.

Your child’s willingness to comply with directions during their completion of formal developmental test tasks & activities is of paramount importance.
To help improve the quality & accuracy of your child’s developmental & behavioral evaluation, please:

  • Try your best to ensure your child receives adequate sleep in the days leading up to his/her visit
  • Bring a snack for your child to eat & drink
  • Bring a few “favorite treats” that you know your child may be particularly motivated to earn as a reward for completing non-preferred test tasks and activities (it’s best if your child does not know you have these “favorite treats” on hand as we want to optimize their power to motivate your child during his/her visit)
  • If at all possible, please arrange for childcare of your other children/dependents so that there are as few distractions as possible during your child’s visit

During Your Visit

Your child’s developmental & behavioral evaluation includes the following:

Acquisition of a detailed developmental history

  • To establish a child’s prior developmental trajectory within each developmental domain – including their gross motor, fine motor, speech/language, social, & adaptive functioning skills.
  • To ascertain if there have been any deviations in a child’s acquisition of new developmental skills & abilities – from what would be considered “typical” or “expected” – & to determine the timing of any deviations (if present).

Administration of one or more formal (standardized) developmental assessments

  • This helps to determine each child’s unique developmental profile, outlining their individual strengths & weaknesses across all developmental domains – including their gross motor, fine motor, speech/language, social, and adaptive functioning skills.

Acquisition of a detailed medical, behavioral, social, educational, therapeutic, and family history

  • Careful consideration of the individual and collective impact of a child’s biologic, genetic, environmental and social factors is an essential part of a thorough developmental and behavioral evaluation because it oftentimes provides context, insight, and better understanding of a child’s developmental profile and any potential underlying causes or contributors to a child’s individual needs &/or concerns.

Following Your Visit:

Depending on your child’s individual needs &/or concerns, your child’s “plan of care” may include a number of medical, developmental, behavioral, & educational treatment recommendations.

Follow-up plans will be discussed – based on your child’s individual needs. In addition, guidance regarding community based resources and services will also be provided.

Please Note: A comprehensive “Developmental and Behavioral Evaluation” report will be provided to you following your child’s evaluation. Typically, this report is completed within ~1 week of a child’s evaluation. However, there are certain circumstances that could cause a delay in your receipt of this report. For example:

If your child’s evaluation could not be completed in its entirety during his/her scheduled appointment (due to patient non-compliance or time constraints), a follow-up visit may be required to finish your child’s comprehensive evaluation.
If additional outside information &/or additional evaluations are deemed necessary, a follow up visit will be scheduled to discuss the results of these additional evaluations & to review your child’s treatment recommendations and “plan of care”.
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