The neurodevelopmental assessment visit for 6-month-olds has been reinvented!
4 months after the start of the 6-month postnatal visit, it had to be canceled by Covid19. Confinement and other measures made it too difficult to continue this visit in person, which is why the Bisc Project team had to reinvent themselves.
Regarding the neuropsychological visit, a team of experts in child neuropsychological evaluation looked for a way to evaluate and obtain the data that until then was giving us the test in the face-to-face format “Bayley Scales of Child Development-III”.
The results were two tests, which have a long history of evaluating children, to compliment the same parents from home. In this way, we avoided contact and mobility during confinement while ensuring the most reliable data.
The first test (Development Profile-DP3), is a test of global development and covers 5 areas of child development: cognitive, adaptive behavior, socio-emotional, motor skills, and communication.
The test consists of a list of questions about the child that parents must answer with a yes or no. Here is an example of the questions in each area:
- Cognitive: Does it show that you like or dislike certain objects, people, or places?
- Adaptive: Do you try to reach nearby objects even if they are out of reach?
- Socioemotional: Do you look at an adult who is talking as if trying to follow what he is saying?
- Motor: Can you sit without help for at least three minutes?
- Communication: Stutter or make some sounds in an attempt to imitate words as if you want to speak?
The second test, on the other hand, is very specific to language. Language is a major part of a child’s development and is influenced and, in turn, influences other areas. That is why it was decided to focus in detail on this capacity.
The test, in particular, the CDAr-I by McArthur-Bates, aims to achieve maximum accuracy in the evaluation of communication as a whole: gestures, communicative intention, comprehension, and expression. That is why it can take a long time to compliment, but we are sure that the results obtained will give us a lot of information about the development of children’s communication and how it is influenced by the whole set of variables we are collecting throughout the project.
Once the two tests have been completed, we will correct them and send you some results that you will surely find interesting.
Some participants who have already complimented them have commented that these tests make you think about the development of your little ones: reading the questions and thinking about the answer helps to understand the skills that we can sometimes overlook.
Once again, thank you so much for staying here with us after all we are going through!
The text has been written by Muriel Ferrer, a psychologist and research technician of the BiSC project.