Brainbow Service Multi-disciplinary Team assessments

Aim of the assessments (for all children and young people)

These assessments aim to help identify your child’s strengths and needs across a range of areas (cognition, speech and language, independence skills, and mobility) following their diagnosis and treatment for a brain tumour. We offer these assessments at regular points as your child grows, in order to monitor for any late effects and identify any emerging difficulties early. This helps us plan with you any support that your child might need at home and/or at school.

Who you will see

You will usually see several members of staff – who you see will depend on what concerns or needs have been identified.

Clinical Psychology: Your child will complete a cognitive assessment, which involves table-based activities and tasks looking at general thinking skills and memory abilities. These tasks will be completed using a mixture of pen and paper tasks and iPads. We may also look at other skills, such as academic skills, attention and concentration, and executive functioning skills. We will also check-in with your child about their emotional wellbeing.

Speech and Language: We will have a discussion about your child’s medical history, attention, social interaction, swallowing, and speech and language milestones, including any current concerns. Your child will complete an assessment of their language use and understanding in areas such as vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar and sentence repetition. If required, we will also look at speech sound production, fluency and voice. These assessments will typically involve the use of picture-based tasks.

Occupational Therapy: We will have a chat about your child’s independence skills, how they occupy their time and their plan for growing older. We will complete some assessments looking at their underlying motor skills (normally a few building and drawing games), explore any fatigue or sensory difficulties, and we might practice some specific day-to-day tasks as well.

Physiotherapy: Our assessments often coincide with Occupational Therapy, but may occasionally be completed independently if more ‘Physio specific’ assessments are required. In general, physiotherapy will complete games, activities and tasks to look at your child’s strength, power and quality of movement. These include walking, balancing, hopping or jumping, throwing and catching, and coordination-based activities.

Specialist Teacher: If input is indicated, the Brainbow Specialist Teacher might meet you and your child in person or talk to you over the phone regarding your child’s learning needs. This might include access arrangements, an EHCP application/review, etc.

How long will the assessments take?

The assessments are generally split across two sessions on two different days. We do this to ensure your child does not become overwhelmed or fatigued by completing a full day of assessments.

Do we need to bring anything/ prepare for the assessments?

Please bring glasses, hearing aids, mobility aids, or anything else your child would use at home/school. Please let us know if there are any other adaptations that we can put in place to help your child. Feel free to bring drinks and snacks to keep up your child’s energy levels.

What happens on the day?

At the beginning of each appointment, we will ask you and your child some questions to get to know more about you and to help them to feel more comfortable. For example, we might ask about family and friends, hobbies and interests, and school. We will also ask for some background information from you (e.g. your child’s developmental milestones, strengths and areas of need). You will usually see each professional separately and we will plan breaks as needed. Assessments can also be adapted to suit your child’s development and needs. This might include doing joint assessments with more than one professional, or modifying assessments to make them more play based.

What happens after the assessments?

We will arrange a meeting with you where the Brainbow team will give you feedback about the results of the assessments, as well as recommendations tailored to your child’s areas of need.

We will also arrange a feedback meeting with your child’s school where we will share the same results and recommendations (with your agreement) and set goals. We will invite you to attend this meeting, or we can call you following this to let you know the outcomes.

We will send written reports to you and to whoever you have consented to us sending copies (e.g. Consultant at Addenbrooke’s, GP, a member of staff at school, local therapy teams, Shared Care Consultant).

We will agree with you a review or re-assessment plan.

How you might explain the appointment to your child

It can be helpful to give your child a brief explanation about the appointment so that they know what to expect. This may include letting them know that we would like to check how they are doing since their brain tumour diagnosis and treatment. We are aware that you may have explained this to them in different ways and that you may have used different language or names.

You can let your child know that they will do some games, tasks, and activities that look at lots of different skills. These are not a test, so your child does not have to prepare for them - they are not ‘pass or fail’.

It might help to reassure your child that it is not a medical appointment, so there will be no medical tests or procedures.

MyChart

We would encourage you to sign up for MyChart. This is the electronic patient portal at Cambridge University Hospitals that enables patients to securely access parts of their health record held within the hospital’s electronic patient record system (Epic). It is available via your home computer or mobile device.

More information is available on the My Chart section of our website.

Contacts/ Further information

Brainbow Service

Tel: 01223 596163

Email CUH Brainbow