Development Assessment @ 4 Years Old

A few weeks ago, we had gone through a session with the child psychologist and he had evaluated that Ian's behaviour was still within the normal range, that meant, there was nothing for us to be alarmed about even when he appeared to be super active or lacking emotional control at times.

One interesting thing that he mentioned, was that when a child had thrown his tantrum, and if we gave in to him after he cried for a while, the next time he threw another tantrum, it would be elevated to the level that we had given in the previous time, as the child had known that our limit could be stretched that far and it was more effective to start straightaway at that level.  Hence, it was a test of tolerance or endurance between the parent and the child, and to see which side would relent first.  One way would be to stop the tantrum immediately by distracting the child.  If not, then let the child stop on his own after crying it out (and nobody would know how long that would take).

We actually felt that Ian was getting more manageable as he grew more matured, and hence, cancelled all the other appointments with the psychologist and the occupational therapist.  This afternoon, we saw the doctor for a review.

She said that as she had expected, there was nothing wrong that the psychologist could find with Ian.  It was perfectly normal for a boy of his age to be very active, as long as it did not hinder his studies in school.  (As his teachers had mentioned, even though he was running around in the class, he could still answer the questions that they asked him later on.)

She did an assessment for him, and said that on the language aspects, his level was just at 4 years old (since he could not answer where he lived, and did not know some of the body parts that she had asked).  However, on the academics aspects, he had already reached the level of a 5 year old.  She had tested him on pattern recognition, some vocabularies, some physical activities such as standing on one leg and walking in a straight line with foot touching foot, counting blocks, and following more than one instruction.

She recommended us to let him be exposed to a variety of fun activities and also mentioned that learning abacus was good for him as well.  It was hard for a child of this age to be restricted to very academically based work and would be boring for him as well.

We had requested for a one year open date for the next appointment.  If there was any concern again, we could always get an appointment with her within the one year window.