The Importance Of Early Intervention

Evidence based research reviews indicate that early intervention prevents, disrupts, or improves developmental delays, and most importantly provides the much-needed support to families of effected children. Neurological evidence supports early intervention in a child’s life, since most of the neurons pathways are created in the first years of life. Early intervention prevents the short-term and long-term impact relative to physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, emotional, feeding, and language development. Early intervention assists families and caregivers by offering support, training, education, and sharing some of the burden that comes with raising a child with special needs. The services are adapted to the need of each child and are provided in the less restricted settings, without changing their familiar routine. In addition, the emotional and mental health of children with developmental delays needs to receive a greater attention as the impact is life-long.
Nevertheless, more research is warranted to investigate the complexities involving child characteristics, type of intervention, and the family factor. We need to conduct more longitudinal studies to determine short term and long term benefits in children enrolled in early intervention program. Ever since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was passed more than 3 decades ago, several improvements are done to efficiently implement the EIP program and to increase access to education. A periodic assessment to evaluate the efficiency of current practices is warranted, and new policies need to become effective based on up-to-date