Subjective and objective assessment

Your overall assessment will consist of both subjective and objective assessments; the difference between these are explored further below.

Subjective assessment includes all the information you will gather from the parent or caregiver (including nursing staff). It is the information you hear or read but do not witness.

A subjective assessment should always start with the caregivers primary concerns and exploration of these. Open-ended questions such as 'what are your major concerns about your baby?' or 'Do you have any concerns regarding your baby’s development?' will offer the caregiver more opportunities than closed questions such as 'are you concerned about your baby’s movement?'. A good follow-up question might be 'What does your baby enjoy most of all?'. Answers might provide clues about what level to commence with your objective assessment.

An objective assessment includes anything you see during assessment or perhaps on parent video of the infant. Your objective assessment will aim to provide a picture of the baby’s current occupational performance as well as opportunities to support best performance.

Guidance on how to administer an observational assessment is included in the Assessment of the Infant handout. Use this guide together with the developmental sequence handouts if a formal assessment is not required or desired.