27 month developmental review

Soon after your child’s second birthday you will be invited to a 27 month health and development review. This appointment is offered free to all children at around 27-30 months of age.

The health visiting service is now offering face to face appointments to all our contacts and health reviews.

Why is it important

The 27 month review is part of the Healthy Child programme and is offered to all children by a health visitor or community nursery nurse. Age 2 is an important time for your child’s development when they are beginning to talk, play alongside other children and interact more. You may also be getting used to separation from them for the first time if they have recently started, or are about to start in childcare.

Before the 27 Month Review you will be asked to complete a simple questionnaire about the things you have seen your child doing at home. Information from the questionnaire, knowledge of your child and the health professional’s expertise will help to get a good picture of your child’s health, behaviour and learning, including progress with developmental milestones.

As part of this review the Early Language Identification Measure (ELIM) and intervention tool is used. This will assess your child’s speech, language and communication. This national assessment involves a word list and observation of your child’s communication during the review. Following this the practitioner will discuss the results with you. It is important to note that children are not expected to use all the words on the ELIM tool list. Additionally, it does not matter what language your child uses for different words.

Toilet training, diet, sleep and physical activity will be included as well as a reminder of when the pre-school immunisations are due and why these are important. If your child needs extra help, such as with learning to talk, early help can ensure that your child can start school, happy, healthy and ready to learn.

First point of contact

If your child lives in Hackney and regularly attends a Hackney nursery, Children’s Centre or playgroup they can benefit from having the review in their childcare setting. This is called an Integrated 27 Month Review and will involve your child’s key educator, a representative from the health visiting team and yourself. You can ask staff in the nursery about the Integrated 27 Month Reviews.

Otherwise the review will be offered by the health visiting service either in your home or within a community health clinic. It is really important for your child to have this review so please make sure to request this if it has not been offered. You should either receive an invitation in the post or from your child's childcare setting.