Your child’s 9 – 12 month health and developmental review

Your child’s health and development review is an opportunity  for you to see how your child is progressing (children are all different and will develop at different rates for all sorts of different reasons). These reviews are carried out by either a Health Visitor, Community Staff Nurse or a Community Nursery Nurse.

You will be sent a text message by a member of our HV  admin team  when your child  is 9 months asking you to book your child’s 10 – 12 month health & development review.

Before the review you will be sent two  questionnaires, Ages and Stages (ASQ)  and Ages and Stages: Social and Emotional (SE) for you to record all your child’s achievements. This will also give you an opportunity to highlight any concerns that you may have about your child.

The  Ages and Stages questionnaires are a reliable, researched based screening tool which provides an overview of how your child is developing. The first ASQ looks at general development in 5 different areas whilst the second questionnaire ASQ  questionnaire focuses on your child’s social and emotional development; how well  your child copes in social situations, as well as managing their emotions.

The review will be  offered as a face to face  contact. This will give you the opportunity to discuss:

• Development- how your child is moving around, their speech and language development, problem solving and how they play and interact
• Safety- safety in the home in relation to your child’s stage of development and sleep advice and routine
• Feeding and oral health- your child’s diet, stopping bottle use and vitamin supplementation
• Behaviour- the positive management of challenging toddler behaviour and the importance of routines
• Health- any health conditions, hearing or vision concerns and the importance of immunisations to child health
• Emotional health and wellbeing- your support networks and how you are coping

Health Visiting teams work together with other health professionals and outside agencies to support you in your parenting journey. This may include local authority early help services or children’s services, when needs are identified. Your Health Visitor will always discuss this with you before sharing any information

As your child approaches their first birthday, you are likely to have noticed them becoming far more independent as they start to move around more, communicate and develop their own personality.

To help you review your child’s development, between the ages of 10 and 12 months you will be asked to complete an ages and stages questionnaire. This helps to identify how well your child is developing in a number of key areas, including communication, gross and fine motor skills, problem solving and their personal and social skills.

This will  include completing a questionnaire known as the Ages and Stages questionnaire, or ASQ:SE and could include the Early Language Identification Measurement (ELIM) assessment tool