EARLY INTERVENTION PROGRAMS

Early intervention programs provide special services to children from birth through age five who are at-risk or have special needs. The scope of these programs may also include the child's family. Early intervention services and programs focus on the areas of cognition (thinking skills), speech/language, motor skills, self-help skills, and social-emotional development. It is not uncommon to find programs that also include services such as nursing, social work, nutrition, and counseling. For example, the Head Start early intervention program offers two meals a day to children as part of its nutritional services.

Professionals, including early intervention teachers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists, usually provide these services. A governing agency generally oversees the running of these programs, their services, and the service providers.

How Children Qualify for Early Intervention

There are several ways children can participate in an early intervention program. The most common way is by having their level of development assessed using a formal, standardized assessment. Individual states have regulations regarding the use of these assessments and their role in qualifying children for early intervention services. Children are also eligible to receive early intervention services if they have a known disability, such as Down syndrome, which carries the likelihood that a delay in later development will occur. Finally, in most states, professionals who work with children may recommend that a child receive early intervention services based on their professional judgment.

With the passage of Public Law 94-142 in 1977, now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal government requires that states provide early intervention services for children from birth through age five. In most circumstances, these services are provided free of charge to families.

In addition to focusing on children with special needs, the federal government in the 1990s began increasing its early intervention focus on programs for children who are at-risk because of their socioeconomic status as well as other risk factors such as an unstable home environment, including the presence of violence and drug abuse. For children who are at-risk, the most common way to qualify for an early intervention program is for the family's income to be below a certain dollar threshold.

How Early Intervention Programs Work

Early intervention services and programs take many forms. The philosophy behind the delivery of these services is to serve the child and the family in the most natural setting. Many children are provided early intervention services in their home, a home child-care setting, a preschool setting, or a combination of these. Services can be provided on an individual basis or in a group, and good early intervention programs include a strong parental component that supports the family while giving the family information about issues the family views as important.

The Foundation of Early Intervention

A growing awareness of the importance of the early years and their long-lasting impact on future development began in the early twentieth century and continued into the early twenty-first century. Building upon that awareness, the idea took hold that providing children with a solid, stimulating foundation in the early years can greatly affect their development. The results of brain research captured the attention of child development specialists in the 1990s. The extent to which a child develops is no longer thought to be due only to the child's genetic makeup. Professionals now believe that how a person's brain, and consequently the rest of the person, develops is based on the interaction between the person's environment and the genes the person was born with. The classic study conducted by two psychologists H. H. Skeels and H. B. Dye in Iowa orphanages in 1939 supports the knowledge scientists have in the early twenty-first century. The results of this study revealed that children in the orphanages who interacted with women with mental retardation improved their IQ scores dramatically, while those who did not receive any interaction or stimulation did not gain any IQ points. In fact, the latter children lost IQ points when given the same standardized test.

In addition to understanding the importance of the environment and early experiences, scientists know that the brain's capacity for learning is not fixed in the early years but can actually increase as a result of early intervention. For example, if an at-risk child with a language delay receives early intervention services, she can often overcome this delay and do just as well as her peers in school. By contrast, if a child has a language delay and does not receive any early intervention services, not only will she fail to close this gap, but the gap will also often widen, leading to further learning difficulties throughout her life. Scientists also believe there are certain times in a child's development that are critical periods for learning certain skills. Although children and adults can acquire new skills throughout their lives, windows of opportunity in the early years open and then close, thus affecting development.

A Successful Early Intervention Program: Head Start

As early intervention programs have grown in popularity and number over the years, several stand out as exceptional programs. Probably the best-known early intervention program for children is Head Start. The Head Start program was developed in 1965 by the federal government as an effort to combat poverty in the United States. Head Start contains four basic principles: (1) the provision of a high-quality early childhood education; (2) the promotion of good health through the treatment of health problems and by providing children with good health care; (3) the active participation of parents in the programs in which their children participate; and (4) the use by families of social services in the community when needed. Head Start has expanded over the years and at the beginning of the twenty-first century included the Early Start Program, which serves infants and toddlers, and the American Indian Head Start and Migrant Head Start Programs.

The Effectiveness of Early Intervention Programs

Another well-known early intervention program is the High/Scope Perry Preschool Study conducted in Ypsilanti, Michigan, from 1962 to 1967. Few early intervention programs have tracked the outcomes of its participants as well as this study has. This program divided African-American children born into poverty and at-risk for failing in school into two groups. One group participated in a high quality early intervention program, one that had well-trained teachers and a curriculum focusing on developmentally appropriate activities; the other group received no early intervention services. The immediate results and the results over time have shown that the children receiving early intervention services were far more successful than the children who did not. At age twenty-seven, participants in the study who received early intervention services were found to have a higher level of income earned per month, a higher level of education completed, a lower arrest rate, and a higher home ownership rate than the children who did not receive early intervention services. Over the lifetime of the participants, project researchers estimate that society has received more than $7 for every $1 invested.

The Effectiveness of Early Intervention Services for Children with Special Needs

The effectiveness of early intervention services for children with special needs has been remarkable. People with disabilities and the members of their families report that early intervention services increased their quality of life. In addition, the results of research have demonstrated that when children with special needs receive early intervention services, they tend to live more productive lives, score higher on standardized assessments, and contribute more to society. Often, the effectstheir disability are lessened while new skills are learned. Children with disabilities who receive early intervention are less likely to develop a secondary disability as a result of not attending to the primary disability. For example, a child with a visual impairment is often delayed in cognitive and motor skills because he does not use the environment as a learning tool. Early intervention services can minimize these secondary delays by teaching the child to explore the environment and learn.

Public Support for Early Intervention Programs

While the level of public support for early intervention programs is sometimes in dispute, primarily because of their cost, the effectiveness of such programs is not. Children who have participated in an early intervention program tend to spend less time in special education, tend to be retained a grade less often, and tend to stay in school and graduate. Although U.S. society was not funding early intervention programs for children at-risk to the extent that would make them commonplace in communities, early intervention programs and the effectiveness of them were beginning at the dawn of the twenty-first century to gain recognition in the public's eye.

Politicians often place increased funding of these programs on their political agendas. In addition, some states are now moving toward offering state-funded preschool programs to all four-year-olds in an effort to follow the national trend of getting children ready to learn. Early intervention programs such as the one included in the High/Scope Perry Preschool study illustrate that the cost factor over time appears to outweigh the cost of funding these programs. Early intervention programs have, over time, proven to make a difference in the lives of children and their families.

See also:HEAD START

Bibliography

"Children Champions." In the National Association for the Education of Young Children [web site]. Washington, DC, 2000. Available from http://www.naeyc.org/default.htm; INTERNET.

Peterson, Nancy L. Early Intervention for Handicapped and At-Risk Children. Denver: Love Publishing, 1987.

Shonkoff, Jack P., and Samuel J. Meisels. Handbook of Early Intervention. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Erin L.Smith-Bird