Early Childhood Intervention

These interventions focus primarily on removing or reducing cognitive, physical, environmental, social and emotional barriers that hinder a child’s health, development and growth through the provision and stimulation of support. The interventions are built on behavioral, social, educational and biomedical research (Farran & Zigler, 2015). Contributions of the interventions are also collected from specialists from several disciplines. The complex and a continuously evolving field is filled with interdisciplinary contributions hence, it attracts a number of researchers from diverse fields such as early childhood education, language pathology, psychology, public health, occupational therapy and social work (Farran & Zigler, 2015). This paper is a research-based presentation that will be presented to a legislative committee that is considering funding for early childhood special education programs. At the time, Early Intervention for toddlers, infants and children were excluded from the legislation.

Early intervention programs for children with disabilities were included to the law a decade later in 1986 (Public Law 99-457) (Kamerman & Zigler). That same year, the US congress created the program of early intervention that focused mainly on toddlers and infants with developmental disabilities. The program recognized the substantial and urgent need to improve the development and growth of disabled toddlers and infants in a bid to; reduce their chances of delayed development, decrease educational costs on the society especially the country’s schools through reduction of the need for early childhood intervention programs and any other significant services available to the children when they become of age, reduce the chances of institutionalization of disabled individuals and in turn increase their chances for normal and independent existence in the society and also increase the capability of families and ability to meet the special needs of their disabled children.

Current Legislation in Place for Children with Special Needs In 1975, special education programs were made obligatory by the United States congress in a bid prevent or end the discrimination that people and children with disabilities faced in public education institutions. As the years progress the value of early childhood intervention has become apparent and investing in the field has become a fulfilment to many. Investing in early childhood development programs for children with special needs ensure, the society as a whole reaps its benefits. Empirical research has revealed that children enrolled in high quality early childhood programs will score higher when they enroll in kindergarten compared to children that attend low quality child programs (Lynch, 2015). On the other hand, children form moderate to low income families that are given an opportunity to attend high quality early childhood schools with sufficient funding will ultimately require less special education and will unlikely retake a grade or even fall under victims of neglect and abuse hence ultimately decreasing the need for child welfare services.