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Children and adolescents have the unique advantage and challenge of rapid growth and development within relatively short duration of time.  For this reason, developmental assessments are essential to identify and measuring growth, ensuring milestones are reached at appropriate times (Milbrath, et al., 2020).  Early identification leads to early interventions for children or adolescents who are not appropriately meeting milestones of development.  When performing a general assessment, whether for mental health issues or annual visit, it is important to also rule out any possible developmental symptoms that could be presenting as other acute symptoms.  It is important to ensure that the child or adolescent is developing appropriately or intervene promptly to address potential delays.

One assessment tool that can be used for very young children, even toddlers, is the Cognitive Adaptive Test/Clinical Linguistic and Auditory Milestone Scale (CAT/CLAMS).  The child plays with toys throughout the evaluation while the provider assesses their level of development (Milbrath, et al., 2020).  This is an effective test for determining the child’s language and cognitive development (Milbrath, et al., 2020).  An advantage of this assessment scale is that it can be used for very young children, as there are no specific questions but rather observation.  This tool is used in children since it involves toys and activity that is rated by the evaluator rather than specific questions that are answered by the client.  

Another tool that could be useful for a wider age range of children is the Early Development of Emotional Competence (EDEC), which is a tool that assesses the correlation between the child’s language skills and emotional abilities, particularly expression or behavior (Na, Wilkinson, & Liang, 2018).  This developmental tool may be more helpful in the mental health context, as it assesses the client’s language development as well as emotional response.  Rather than diagnosing, this tool can be useful in assessing the family dynamics, as parents or caregivers are active participants in this evaluation (Na, Wilkinson, & Liang, 2018).  While parents participate, the assessment tool is focused on the emotional regulation of the child or adolescent client.  This tool is used in children as it evaluates language development in relation to emotions, which would not be applicable for adult clients.

As with all populations of clients, evidence based treatments are most effective in treating a variety of symptoms, and can be taught to a large group to implement for practice (Leathers & Strand, 2018).  One method of treatment that would be more appropriate for children or adolescents over adults would be game or activity based treatment modalities.  This allows for the children to interact in a way that does not require verbal articulation.  While activity or other experiential therapies can be utilized for adults, they are more likely to be utilized and effective with a younger population.  Another treatment modality that would be more appropriate for child or adolescent clients is a technology application that can be used on a computer or tablet (Davidson, et al., 2019).  This is another way to engage children to actively participate in an application on a screen, which comes easily to children and adolescents.  While adults would be capable of utilizing an application on a computer, phone, or tablet, it would be more effective for younger clients. 

Parents play an important role in assessing child clients, as the parents are able to articulate observable symptoms or concerns that the young client may not be able to identify or label.  Another role that parents play in assessment and treatment is how they may be affected by their children’s diagnoses or symptoms.  It is important to identify parents who require increased support related to treatment, as there are specialized assessment tools to measure this as well (Samadi, Abdollahi-Bograbadi, & McConkey, 2018).  This can be an important part of the assessment and evaluation process for children and parents alike.  Often, the stressors experienced in the home environment affect and exacerbated already existing symptoms among children and parents.

References

Davidson, T.A., Bunnell, B.E., Saunders, B.E., Hanson, R.F., Danielson, C.K., Cook, D., Chu,

B.C., Dorsey, S., Adams, Z.W., Andrews III, A.R., Walker, J.H., Soltis, K.E., Cohen,

J.A., Deblinger, E., & Ruggiero, K.J.  (2019).  Pilot evaluation of a tablet-based

application to improve quality of care in child mental health treatment.  Behavior

Therapy, 50(2), 367-379.  doi:10.1016/j.beth.2018.07.005.

Leathers, S.J., & Strand, T.C.  (2018).  Social work training in the use of evidence-based

treatments for children: What works?  Journal of Social Work Education, 54(S1), S41-

S55.  doi:10.1080/10437797.2018.1434444.

Milbrath, G., Constance, C., Ogendi, A., & Plews-Ogan, J.  (2020).  Comparing two early child

development assessment tools in rural Limpopo, South Africa.  BMC Pediatrics, 20,

197.  doi:10.1186/s12887-020-02101-0.

Na, J.Y., Wilkinson, K., & Liang, J.  (2018).  Early Development of Emotional Competence

(EDEC) assessment tool for children with complex communication needs: Development

and evidence.  American Journal  of Speech-Language Pathology, 27, 24-

36.  doi:10.1044/2017_AJSLP-16-0058.

Samadi, S.A., Abdollahi-Boghrabadi, G., & McConkey, R.  (2018).  Parental satisfaction with

caregiving for children with developmental disabilities: Development of a new

assessment tool.  Children (Basel), 5(12), 166.  doi:10.3390/children5120166.

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