What is a Multidisciplinary Assessment?

[Tanya32]

Hi my son is 3yrs and 4mths old and we will be going to his first MDA (multidisciplinary assessment). Has anyone gone on 1 of these with their child/ren? what does the assessment entail? My son was referred by his nursery as he has speech delays and has general development delays for his age. In general my son is a loving & social as he loves to sing and dance + has common interests like most boys his age ie. Sponge Bob, Lightening Mcqueen & etc. The assessment is aprox. 2hrs long just wanted to know what to expect......

Hi, there will probably be at least a couple of professionals there, e.g. maybe a speech and language therapist, a paediatrician, a physio.

They will probably have a play with him with a few toys to see what speech sounds he's making and if there's any patterns, they'll look at his play, his language levels - receptive language (understanding) and expressive (the words he's using), his fine and gross motor skills, that kind of thing. They'll also have a chat with you about what he's doing at home and his development and milestones up to now, what your concerns are.

hope it goes well

Thanks Tasmaniandevilchaser. I'm worried as to what they (medical professionals) will diagnose my child but also want to get things sorted before he starts school. Thanks once again!

It's not as scary as it sounds...its just all the people involved with ur child having a chat with u included..... x

It's not about diagnosis just best way forward x

we had this recently, they did 4 families in the same session its almost like a play session for the children (dont think my son would have realised it was anything different from a small stay and play type thing) only thing is they also take medical developmental etc history from the parents, and some of the professionals eg speech and language therapist will go and engage with and play with your child so they can make their own observations.
also in ours they took each child aside to another room for couple of mins to look at any birth marks they have and check their head circumferenace and also do the height and weight. but my son refused to stand on the height checker so they didnt do it, so they were not too pushy
they also do a snack to observe how they are with that, and did outside play to observe that too. they had paeds and slt at ours, didnt bring physio they just made do with previous reports but didnt have them in attendance so maybe it depends what the main issues are i think all the 4 dc who were in session with us were being assessed mainly for social communication kinda stuff so slt and paed were the main ones for that?
then they called us back next day to give diagnosis, so atleast not a long wait.

good luck hopefully it will all go well and u get some more support for your little boy. although it can be hard to hear when they give a dx it opens more doors for your little one for support.

Hello tanya, DS (1YO) has recently had one and I felt nerves like it was an exam as didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be a group of professionals quizzing us before delivering a verdict, of course wasn't like that at all.

We had a paed, physio, OT and were supposed to also have speech therapist too but speech person got held up and couldn't make it. The paed chatted to DH and I about DS history, concerns, what we wanted to get out of the session whilst the physio and OT played with DS next to us. After about an hour they went off and had a little chat whilst we had a coffee and a chat ourselves! They then gave us a bit of a lowdown of their initial thoughts. We were told a report would be sent to us in 4-6 weeks. We haven't had that report yet but only going into week 4 now.

So, clearly not something want to be doing, but wasn't half as daunting as I thought it would be. It was also refreshing to have a whole team report back and a shared opinion IYKWIM.

Good luck for yours, the worry is awful I know.

hi do u mind me asking how long you waited for the assessment? ive been told in access of 12 months! im so worried as september isnt that far away and my son needs a diagnosis in place to help him get what he needs to be supported properly in school, senco at the nursery don't seem to think it will affect his ehcp plan being put in place but I'm very concerned about it so thought id ask for some advice from those who have been through it.

Sadly you won't get the appointment within weeks it can take months I waited13.5 months for my sons appointment, there is a massive back long at the moment too due to covid, the school will help support the best they can until your appointment