What is Early Intervention?

Early Childhood Intervention has been defined as “the term used to describe the services and supports that are available to babies and young children with developmental delays and disabilities, who are at risk of poor outcome and their families”. (1,2)

Purpose of Early Intervention?

The early intervention’s primary purpose has been to help acquire and generalise critical developmental skills to the possible extent and achieve independent functioning across environments. The time period from birth up to six years is considered the most crucial for brain development, and intervening during this will help children reach their learning and developmental goals. (3)

Benefits of Early Intervention:

Direct benefits of EI include improvement in outcomes like physical, cognitive, behavioural, and social and emotional development, parent efficiency, mental health, and understanding of their child. (4) Other reported benefits included increment in verbal and non-verbal abilities of children with ASD, along with improved parents and caregivers’ efficacy and understanding of their child’s needs. (5,6)

References:
1) Realising the potential of early intervention https://www.eif.org.uk/report/realising-the-potential-of-early-intervention

2) What is “Early Intervention”? https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/parents/states.html

3) National Research Council (US) and Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development. From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. Shonkoff JP, Phillips DA, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2000.

4) Early Identification of and Intervention for Infants and Toddlers Who Are at Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/0161-1461(2003/015)

5) Who benefits from early intervention in autism spectrum disorders? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S175094671000070X?via%3Dihub

6) Autism spectrum disorder. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31949163/