How a Lumi session works

Before, during and after

Before the session

The assessor signs in to the portal and sets up a session for the child. This is a good moment to record context that might affect how the child plays: how they slept, whether it's their usual time of day, anything new at home or school.

Lumi works best somewhere quiet, with the child sitting comfortably and the tablet at a height they can reach easily.

During the session

Lumi greets the child and guides them from island to island along a lantern-lit path. Each island is a short game. Between islands the child sees the map and how far they've come.

On the live monitor, the assessor sees which island the child is on and how the activity is going. They can add quick, time-stamped observation tags, for example when a child looks away, talks about the game, or needs encouragement. If a child is clearly done with an island, the assessor can move them on.

Standardised recorded instructions

Every instruction is a recorded voice, with the words shown on screen too. Every child hears the same words, at the same pace, in the same order. The child can tap to hear an instruction again.

This matters because small differences in how an adult explains a task can change how a child does it. Recorded instructions also mean the assessor can concentrate on watching, rather than reading from a script.

Rests and battery check-ins

A rest button is always on the child's screen. The child can press it whenever they like, without asking. Lumi offers a short, calm breathing break and the game carries on when the child says they're ready.

Along the way Lumi asks, “How's your battery right now?” The child picks how full their battery feels. This gives the child a simple way to say they're tired, and gives the assessor context for reading the results. Rests and check-in answers are shown in the report.

After the session: the report

The report sets out what happened on each island: the child's responses, how long they took and the choices they made, along with the assessor's own observation tags and the session context.

The report describes observations. It doesn't give a diagnosis, a label or a single overall score.

Data-quality flags

Some sessions give clearer information than others. Each island in the report carries a data-quality note that says, in plain words, if something might make it harder to interpret. For example:

• the island was stopped before the end;
• there were too few responses to read a pattern reliably;
• an answer to a checking question suggests the child may have misunderstood the scene.

Where there are no concerns, the report says so. The aim is that nobody reads more into a result than the session can support.