The 6 Month Review in Early Intervention

Once your child qualifies for early intervention, the IFSP is written. An IFSP is your Individual Family Service Plan. Your family is paired with the right therapists for your child’s needs. You have invited the therapists into your home and hopefully seen your child grow. As you work with your child’s therapists, the six month review creeps up on you. Hopefully your child has made some amazing growth and the therapists have given you some awesome resources and ideas.

But what is the six month review?

Basically this is when your service coordinator, your child’s therapists and yourself gather together to celebrate your child’s progress. This is usually a happy and fun meeting! Together, everyone remembers what your child was able to do six months ago to highlight the growth your child has made during her time in Early Intervention. And for many children, the growth is incredible.

Service coordinators schedule a six month review, within six months of your child beginning services. Some service coordinators schedule this from the date your child qualified for Early Intervention. Other service providers do this from the date your child began receiving services. You can ask your service coordinator to clarify which date is used in your state or county. This will help you with scheduling future meetings too.

6 Month Review and Goals

During the six month review, you will discuss the goals written by the Early Intervention team six months ago. Think about why the team wrote those goals then? What skills was your child struggling with at the time and what areas did they need support? Then discuss how your child is progressing on those goals. Is he making progress towards them? Has she already met all the goals written six months ago? Are new goals needed? How has your child changed over the last six months?

If your child is still working to meet the goals written six months ago, that’s perfectly acceptable too! Each child grows and learns at their own pace. Think about the growth and services your child is receiving. Is your child making steady progress towards his goals? Has the progress halted? Is there a decline in your child’s progress? Would a different therapy help your child? Should the team consider adding more minutes each month or more frequent meetings? Does your child need additional support personnel or services added to their IFSP?

During this review, the team (including you) may even write new goals. This usually happens if your child is making good progress or has meet his/her current goals. Children change and grow so quickly during these early years that often times goals written six months ago are no longer relevant to what the child needs to work on now.

Services and Strategy Discussion at the 6 Month Review

You will also review the strategies provided at the original IFSP and decide if these are working. Sometimes different ones are introduced, or new strategies need consideration. This is a great time to share what your family has done at home, which strategies are working and which ones didn’t fit your family. Then ask the therapists to share new strategies or ideas that may better work for your child.

This is not the time to be shy. If your child is struggling with a new skill or a new behavior, share this with the team. They may have a strategy that can help or may even write a new goal based on your new concerns. Even more, new concerns may help to determine other services or a change in minutes that your child needs.

Early Intervention Services Review

The team may add or change a service if there is a need. Does your child show a need in a new area? Is another type of therapy needed or would a consult with a new therapist help? Has your child made considerable growth and therapies can shift or lessen?

Frequency and duration of services may need change to meet your child’s needs, and additional training may need to be considered. If your child is making limited growth, the team may decide to increase the amount of time offered. Maybe your child needs an additional meeting each week or month. Maybe the length of each meeting increases.

This is usually not a time when children are exited from the program, unless this is at the request of the family. The one year evaluation meeting and the school district transition meeting are more focused on the possibility of exiting from the Early Intervention program.

Is a Meeting Required?

Physically, absolutely not! However, some type of connection should occur. Sometimes a phone conference, an in-person meeting, or even a review by mail is sufficient if that is what your family needs. With zoom and other teleconference technology, we can often host a meeting when an in-person meeting might not be possible.

When the therapist comes to your home and meets with both your child and yourself, you may not feel a need for a bigger six month review in Early Intervention. You are getting updates after each session and usually have time to share with the therapists. However, this is a great time for all the different therapists to share together with the parent. You may discover a new aha moment or even see ways to pair some of the therapies together so that your child works on their goals with everyone.

Taking 30 minutes to one hour to discuss your child’s needs and strengths with the entire team can be an eye opening process. Not only might you learn something new and celebrate your child’s progress, but the collaboration of your child’s therapists can be extremely helpful too. Sometimes one therapist may be able to help support a goal outside of their area of expertise or might have recommendations that could help. This sharing can lead to even more results for your child.

Why is the review necessary?

Young children grow and change so quickly! A skill they might not have had just last week, they have already mastered a few days later. The six month review ensures that everyone looks at the goals written and strategies offered at a minimum of every six months. By reviewing the IFSP, you can keep the goals and strategies current, plus get all the different service providers on the same page. While a speech therapist focuses on language and speech, an occupational therapist can support these goals as well. So talking together helps your family and your child even more!

Keeping your child’s needs and strengths at the forefront of the therapists minds helps your child to make greater gains. This is time that you can collaborate with all your child’s therapists and your service coordinator too. The coming together of all these minds focused on your child can lead to even more improvement.

Now you might be thinking, my child only has one therapist. Even in that case, it’s still good to have a 6 month review. Together, you can share how your child has grown in the six months as well as new areas of concern. Even more importantly, you can ask the therapist any questions or share problems you are experiencing with your child. Then you can discuss how to continue to help your child to progress and grow.

What do I need to prepare?

I usually bring a copy of my child’s goals and strategies from the current IFSP. The entire IFSP is usually stapled together, so just bring the whole packet. You can turn to the pages you need or even add post-it flags to the right pages. If you don’t have this, your service coordinator will bring it, so don’t fret.

If you haven’t already started a Parent’s Special Education Binder for your child’s paperwork, I highly suggest starting a binder to keep all the important documents. This makes it super easy to grab the binder before any meetings about your child. I even bring them to parent-teacher conferences.

I also try to write my own ideas about how my child has progressed from six months ago. This just lets me see the wonderful progress we have made and share this with the entire team. Start by reviewing the IFSP’s section of present levels of performance for a great reminder of what your child could do six months ago. Notice any changes both positive and negative. This is a great way to remind yourself of the progress that your child has made or notice that your child really isn’t making progress.

Finally, I bring a list of questions or other areas that I feel my child may need more support. If you don’t ask, you won’t know. When all the team is together is a great time to ask your questions and look for advice on any current delays you may notice or parenting questions you may have. Be sure to look at the CDC’s list of developmental milestones for young children.

How Does the 6 Month Review Go?

While not every Early Intervention Coordinator will follow the same agenda for the six month review, most follow the same general sequence. You may find that one coordinator puts the agenda items in a different order or adds something to the meeting, but generally, each meeting has the same key components.

Introductions for the 6 Month Review

The 6 month review usually starts with introductions of all the team members. While you might know all the members on the team, they may not really know each other. This is also a good reminder of which person is whom and what they their role is at the meeting.

Parental Concerns

Afterwards, the parents will be invited to share their concerns and celebrations. This is where your notes come in and where you can share or ask questions about anything.

6 Month Review of Goals and Strategies

Next, the therapists will share what your child is currently doing. They will discuss the goals written six months ago as well as your child’s progress towards the goals. If needed, they will write new goals. Then the team will discuss the strategies used, offer new strategies or delete others based on your child’s goals and what is working with your child.

Services and Minutes Needed for the Next 6 Months

After that, the team discusses the services and minutes provided. For many children these stay the same, but if your child is not making progress or showing other areas of delay, the team may add additional service providers or increase minutes.

Daily Living Impact

Finally, the team will look at how your child’s delays impact their daily living. These are the same statements that were read when writing your child’s current IFSP. The team will be asked to rate the area based on how much impact it has on your child’s current daily life. Some of these may affect your child more than others and that is expected.

Remember, this is a time to celebrate! But is also a time to ask for more if your child isn’t making enough growth. You know your child best, so be sure to advocate for what your child needs.

We’d Love to Connect with You

For more information on the next steps in Early Intervention, read our Early Intervention – 1 Year Re-Evaluation post for more information on the next step in your EI journey. If your child is 2.5 years old or getting ready to turn three, head on over to Transitioning to the School District for more information on this process. When your child moves to the school district for services, which begins the when your child turns 3 (or for summer birthdays, beginning in the fall), your child will move from an IFSP to an IEP, Individualized Education Plan. We have a guide for parents on the IEP progress.

If you have any questions, leave us a comment below. We’d love to help you along your journey. For more practical parenting solutions to everyday problems, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and join our growing family today. We send out a twice monthly newsletter with tips and tricks for raising kids as well as a freebie here and there for you.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.