top of page

What is Developmental Therapy?

As a requirement of the Arkansas First Connection Early Intervention (EI) program, children from Birth to Three years of age in the EI program must have developmental testing completed.  Developmental testing is an assessment of a child's overall development in the following key areas:

ADAPTIVE SKILLS - how much a child actively participates in their activities of daily living such as eating with utensils, getting dressed/undressed, bathing, grooming, and potty training.

PERSONAL/SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL SKILLS - a child’s experience, expression, and management of emotions and the ability to establish positive and rewarding relationships with others including both peers and adults.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS - how well a child understands language (receptive language skills) and how effective the child is at communicating their everyday needs (expressive communication).

MOTOR SKILLS - how well a child is at performing developmentally appropriate fine motor tasks (the coordination between a child's small muscles, like those in their hands, wrists, and fingers in coordination with their eyes) and gross motor skills (involves the larger, stronger muscle groups of the body needed for walking, running, jumpin​g, climbing, strength, and balance).

COGNITIVE SKILLS - involves the progressive building of a child's learning skills, such as attention, memory, and thinking. These crucial skills enable children to process sensory information and eventually learn to understand cause and effect, evaluate, analyze, remember, and make comparisons.

Children in the EI program who are exhibiting delays in any one or more of these areas may be eligible for weekly or monthly developmental therapy from a licensed developmental therapist.  Services are provided in the home or at the daycare/preschool, wherever the child's daily natural enviornment is.

bottom of page