Assessment
At Sensory Health Matters, we offer tailored assessment packages for children aged 2 to 12 years. Our assessments use observations, parent and teacher input, and standardised tests to understand your child’s unique needs, helping us create personalised strategies to support the development and well-being of your children.
Essential Sensory Assessment
Available to pre-school aged children (2-5 years) and school-aged children (6-12 years)
What’s involved in our Essential Sensory Assessment package?
We gather information from parents and educators via our Sensory Health Matters Questionnaire and a formal sensory questionnaire called the Sensory Processing Measure, or SPM-2
We schedule an initial consultation with parents to discuss responses to the pre-assessment questionnaires
We observe your child at kinder, daycare or school (if applicable)
We arrange a phone call with your child’s educator to gather additional information linked to our pre-assessment questionnaires
We conduct a one-to-one assessment at home. This involves fun, semi-structured activities to explore your child’s sensory preferences alongside clinical observations linked to fine and gross motor skills, pre-writing skills, motor planning and postural control
We may schedule additional consultations with other clinicians working with your child and review any external assessment reports provided.
We analyse the assessment information and write a detailed written summary with recommendations
We meet with parents to explain and discuss our findings. This takes place via telehealth, approximately 4 weeks following the assessment.
What our families say…
“Finding Angela has been a god send for our family. Angela is supportive, so knowledgeable, caring and provides an amazing service. We cannot thank her enough!”
- Caregiver of 4 yr old
“Angela is an amazing OT. She is such a professional at her work and has a very calm and caring approach. My son is making wonderful progress that has really helped him and our family. Being an educator myself I Couldn’t recommend her high enough.”
- Mother of a 3 yr old
Comprehensive Sensory Assessment
Available to school-aged children (5-12 years)
Our comprehensive assessment utilises the Evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration, or EASI and the Sensory Processing Measure, or SPM-2. All aspects of our Essential Sensory Assessment are included, alongside more in-depth assessment of your child’s sensory processing and integration abilities.
The EASI provides assessment in the sensory foundations essential for successful participation in everyday activities and learning. The tests include measures of vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile, and visual sensory perception, praxis, visual motor integration, postural and bilateral control, and sensory reactivity. Scores from the EASI provide practitioners with a comprehensive tool to understand underlying sensory motor foundations of a child’s strengths and challenges, which, in turn, aid in identification of supports and barriers for successful occupational performance. The EASI is designed to assess children ages 3-12 years of age. At Sensory Health Matters, we mostly use this assessment for children 6-12 years of age. The current time needed to administer the full set of 20 tests is approximately 3-4 hours, typically split over two sessions.
Click here to learn more about each of the 20 EASI tests.
If your child is experiencing several of the following difficulties, our comprehensive assessment is likely to be more beneficial than our Essential Sensory Assessment:
Difficulty learning new motor tasks, often requiring more time and practice
Clumsy, awkward or accident prone
Struggles with organizing motor activities that involve multiple steps i.e. getting dressed
Has trouble following directions that involve two or three steps
Difficulty with ball activities or other sports
Difficulty with fine motor skills and self-care skills like fastening buttons or zips
Finds drawing, colouring, or copying particularly challenging.
May prefer sedentary activities
Difficulty organising materials and resources – has a messy desk, loses items arrives to class with the wrong materials.
What our families say:
“Thank you so much Angela! Navigating our way through NDIS requirements, assessments and understanding our son’s sensory needs has been made so much clearer through your guidance. Our son loved his time with Angela and her detailed assessment report is going to help him through school, with his family and most likely through the rest of his life. We are so grateful for your patience and expertise.”
- Mother of 11 year old
“I was absolutely thrilled to have found Angela, her vast knowledge and skill set proved invaluable, helping us to gain a deep understanding of my daughter's unique sensory needs, as well as her many strengths. The assessment process was easy to manage yet incredibly comprehensive, I couldn't be happier with the results. Thank you so much.”
- Mother of 8 year old
Key Add On’s For All Assesment Packages
Relational / Attachment-Informed Assessment
Depending on your reason for referral and presenting concerns, we may also recommend additional assessments:
Marschak Interaction Method (MIM)
The MIM involves structured activities to evaluate the child’s social-emotional development, focusing on aspects like communication, cooperation, and emotional connection. The activities are completed by parent and child and filmed for review by Theraplay trained practitioners after the session to inform intervention planning and goal setting. It is particularly useful for children displaying social-emotional difficulties, regulation difficulties or for parents wishing to learn about their strengths and needs within the parent-child relationship.
The Child Attachment and Play Assessment (CAPA)
The Child Attachment and Play Assessment (CAPA) assesses attachment and complex trauma in children aged 3 – 11 years. This is a doll-play procedure which is filmed and usually takes about 30 minutes to administer. It uses the established narrative story stem procedure in which children are given the beginning of a story (the stem) and then asked to ‘show and tell me what happens next?’
Sensory Profiling for Parents
Parents are encouraged to discover their sensory preferences and strategies to manage stress by completing their own sensory profile. Understanding which sensory experiences parents enjoy most can empower them to handle challenging situations, both in their parenting role and other areas of life. Recognizing the situations, sensory inputs, or interactions that lead to feeling overwhelmed will also help reduce stress. Profiling parents can further enrich our understanding of the parent-child relationship by revealing similarities and differences in sensory profiles. This holistic approach offers deeper insights into how sensory processing impacts their interactions and can inform strategies to strengthen the parent-child connection.
Contact us
Angela Tieman
admin@sensoryhealthmatters.au