Attention Many parents first express concern about their child's behaviour. Preschool teachers and diagnosticians are encouraged to observe the child's behaviour in various structured and unstructured situations. Sometimes attention waxes and wanes with task difficulty or factors within the environment. Social Maturity and Adaptive Behaviour Standardized measures for adaptive behaviour can provide valuable information about a child's overall learning and adjustment in the environment. Social maturity by definition, is the ability to care for oneself and others.
Most diagnosticians are aware of the limitations of tests.
While tests yield good information, observation of children in real world settings, when they are engaged in play and social interactions are equally valuable. With carefully selected materials and probes, one can examine perceptual skills, hypothesis testing, memory, representation, various type of play, communication, and problem solving. Only from observations and real life situations can one explore the child's use of language for various purposes, the ability to adjust language for various audi ences, and nonverbal communication. Diagnosticians should be particularly cautious when giving tests to children the first time. In order to explore a child's rate of learning and the forms of instruction that are most beneficial, we recommend periods of diagnostic teaching.