What is Early Intervention?
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We spend a great deal of time with families understanding the inner workings of routines and children.
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What is Early Intervention?
Much has been written about the importance of a child’s first five years of life.
Early Intervention Helps Children Reach Their Potential
Much has been written about the importance of a child’s first five years of life. What a baby does and experiences during these early years gives a foundation upon which later skills are developed. That’s why it’s so important to identify which babies can benefit from early intervention.
It’s important to remember that if your child is eligible for early intervention, you will receive these services at no charge.
Services Offered
Understanding the Different Members of a Treatment Team
Here is a list of the different professionals who might be called upon to help your child.
With a background in child development, this specialist can work with your family to help your child achieve skills in a typical developmental order. They are able to assist children in the areas of physical skills, cognitive development, communication, social/emotional skills and adaptive skills. In addition, a developmental specialist is highly qualified to help the family address difficult behaviors in young children and help support a behavior plan.
This individual has been trained to understand activities that use large muscles of the body. A Physical Therapist (PT) can help your child with balance and movement and other activities that use gross motor skills. They work on movements such as rolling, sitting, crawling, and walking. A PT may also assist in making recommendations for adaptive equipment.
An expert in food and nutrition, a nutritionist helps your child with dietary skills and promotes good health through proper eating. They also supervise the preparation and service of food, develop modified diets, participate in research, and educate families on good nutritional habits.
If your child needs assistance with fine motor skills, which involve the small muscles of the body, an occupational therapist (OT) can help. Fine motor skills include reaching, grasping, picking up small objects, and self-help skills such as self-feeding, dressing and hygiene. An OT may also be helpful with feeding difficulties that involve the small muscles of the face and mouth, developing skills involving eye-hand coordination, and sensory-integration issues. An OT is able to assist your family in obtaining adaptive equipment as well.
Depending on your child’s condition, a social worker may be assigned to help your child. This person would make a home visit to evaluate your child’s living conditions and how the family interacts. The social worker can make an assessment of your baby’s social or emotional development and then provide individual, family or group counseling to the parent or other family members. Recommending social-skill building activities for you and your child, and working to address any problems in the home or community related to your baby’s condition are other services the social worker can provide. The social worker can be instrumental in helping you identify, mobilize, and coordinate community early intervention services that your child needs.
Whether your child has shown significant language delay or hearing loss, or has difficulty producing speech sounds, this type of therapist can help your child increase communication skills. A speech therapist may also work with your child if he or she is having oral-motor or feeding issues. They can help with the coordination of breathing, chewing and swallowing, and assist a family from tube-feedings to oral feedings.
Your child could be evaluated for his visual functioning. Tests would be done to determine a diagnosis and appraisal of specific visual disorders, delay and abilities. Once an assessment is made, your child would be referred to medical or other professional services that would help your child. Additional services available include communication skills training, orientation and mobility training for all environments, visual training, independent living skills training, and other types of training to activate visual motor abilities.
These pediatric audiology specialists provide a range of diagnostics and amplification/management options for children of all ages (birth through school years) with hearing loss or hearing concerns. The pediatric audiologists work with children and their families in conjunction with schools, other agencies, and other providers to help promote the child’s communication development.
Functional Vision Assessment
The functional vision assessment is a method of gathering information about an individual’s functional use of vision for the usual tasks of daily life. Typically, a qualified professional in the health, education, or rehab field conducts the assessment. This might include eye care providers, a teacher of the Visually Impaired, a Certified Mobility Specialist, or a trained Occupational or Rehab/Vision Therapist. Information for the assessment is gathered through a variety of sources and may include input from family members, care providers, practitioners, and educators. Ideally, prior to the functional vision evaluation, the individual has received a basic eye examination by an eye care professional, such as an Ophthalmologist, Pediatric Ophthalmologist, Optometrist, or Low Vision/Pediatric Optometrist. These professionals are best able to examine the individual’s eye health, identifying the presence of any refractive, accommodative, or structural abnormalities. The functional vision assessment might include a combination of formal and informal screening activities, tools, materials, and tasks. The assessment can be conducted in both clinical and non-clinical settings like home, school, community, rehab facility, medical center or a physician’s office. If the individual has prescription eyeglasses, it’s important that the eyeglasses be in place during the assessment whenever possible. The functional vision assessment usually considers the following areas; visual field use, functional acuity, visual pursuit, eye-hand use, eye-teaming behaviors, color/pattern/contrast considerations, and lighting needs. As a result of the assessment, the individual’s current visual parameters can be better understood and appropriate interventions that reflect strengths and needs can be designed.