Due to the particular developmental risks associated with young children's traumatic experiences, it is essential that vulnerable children be identified as early as possible after the trauma. Many community resources—including health systems, Early Intervention programs, child welfare agencies, Head Start, child care programs, and early education systems—play an important role in identifying children, and in linking them and their families with services.
Some of these systems now try to address possible traumatic experiences by including questions about specific traumas into their intake and/or assessment protocols. For example, both Head Start and Early Intervention intake protocols include questions about domestic violence in families. Other protocols may include targeted questions about accidents, loss of family members, and/or significant medical history. Most young children are seen at regular intervals by providers in the pediatric health care system, enabling repeated opportunities for identifying early childhood trauma. As such, medical providers can also play an important role in diminishing risks and in maximizing protective factors associated with young children's exposure to trauma. They can supply information to prevent accidents and can incorporate questions about stressful and traumatic experiences into their interviews with families.
Assessment of trauma in young children must focus on the presenting problem in the context of the child's overall development. This information can be gathered though interviews with the parents and significant caregivers in the child's life, observation of the parent/caregiver-child interaction, and standardized assessment tools. Clinical assessment should include review of the specifics of the traumatic experience including:
When conducting an assessment of a young child, it is also important to assess developmental delays (e.g., gross/fine motor, speech/language, sensory processing), which may indicate that the child could benefit from evaluation and/or services from another professional (e.g., occupational therapist, speech/language therapist, physical therapist). It is often helpful to consult and to work collaboratively with these professionals.
Below is a list of some of the standardized instruments used within the NCTSN to assess traumatic stress in young children.