Early Intervention Services (EIS)

Early intervention has the ability to enhance development among children who are already experiencing intellectual delays. These are achieved through Early Intervention Services to ensure the children access their social competence needs and achieve the desired mental health (Bailey, Raspa, Humphreys, Sam, 2011). The definition of EIS has been clarified by the IDEA (1997), “EIS are the developmental services designed to meet the developmental needs of an infant or toddler with a disability and the needs of the family to assist appropriately in the infant’s or toddler’s development, of the following areas: physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, or adaptive development” (p. 57). IDEA (2017) discusses the most recent division of early intervention services that have been reviewed and officially approved for 2017, as shown in the Table 3.1. The Early Intervention Services are provided by a multidisciplinary team in order to ensure the delivery of an appropriate service from the professional person. For this reason, IDEA highlights the need to display the specialisation of the EI team and emphasises the importance of the presence of the team members according to the situation of each child and his family and their need for various kinds of EIS. The team consists of audiologists, family therapists, nurses, occupational therapists, orientation and mobility specialists, paediatricians and other physicians for diagnostic and evaluation purposes, physical therapists, psychologists, registered dieticians, social workers, special educators, including teachers of children with hearing impairments (including deafness) and teachers of children with visual impairments (including blindness), speech and language pathologists, vision specialists, including ophthalmologists and optometrists (ibid).

Table3.1 Types of early intervention service

Types of early intervention services

The meaning

Assistive technology device and service

Assistive technology device and service any item, a piece of equipment whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified or customized, that is used to increase or improve the functional capabilities of a toddler with a disability. Also, any service that directly assists a toddler with a disability in the selection, acquisition, or use of an assistive technology device. Audiology services

Referral for medical and other services necessary for the habilitation or rehabilitation of an infant or toddler with a disability who has an auditory impairment.

Family training, counseling, and home

visits

Services provided by social workers, psychologists, and other qualified personnel to assist the family of an infant or toddler with a disability in understanding the special needs of the child and enhancing the child’s development.

Health services

The term includes such services as clean intermittent catheterisation, tracheostomy care, tube feeding, the changing of dressings or colostomy collection bags, and other health services; and consultation by physicians with other service providers concerning the special health care needs of infants and toddlers with disabilities.

Medical services Services provided by a licensed physician for diagnostic or evaluation purposes to determine a child’s developmental status and need for EIS.

Nursing services

Include the assessment of health status for the purpose of providing nursing care, the provision of nursing care to prevent health problems, restore or improve functioning, and promote optimal health and development; and the administration of medications.

Nutrition services

Include conducting individual assessments; nutritional history and clinical variables; feeding skills and feeding problems; food habits and food preferences; developing and monitoring appropriate plans to address the nutritional needs of children and making referrals to appropriate community resources to carry out nutrition goals.

Occupational therapy

Includes services to address the functional needs of a toddler with a disability related to adaptive development, adaptive behaviour, and play, and sensory, motor, and postural development. These services are designed to improve the child’s functional ability to perform tasks at home, at school and in a community.

Physical therapy

Includes services to address the promotion of sensorimotor function through enhancement of musculoskeletal status, neurobehavioural organisation, perceptual and motor development, and effective environmental adaptation.

Psychological services

Include obtaining, integrating, and interpreting information about child behaviour and family conditions related to learning, mental health, and development; planning and managing a programme of psychological services, including psychological counseling for children and parents, family counseling, consultation on child development, parent training.

Service coordination services

It means services provided by a service coordinator to assist and enable toddler with a disability and the child's family to receive the services and rights, for example, coordinating the services identified in the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), such as educational, social, and medical services and informing families of their rights and procedural safeguards. Sign language and cued

language services

Include teaching sign language, and auditory/oral language, providing oral transliteration services (such as amplification) and sign and cued language interpretation.

Social work services

Include making home visits to evaluate a child’s living conditions and patterns of parent-child interaction; preparing a social or emotional developmental assessment; providing individual and family-group counselling with parents and other family members, working with those problems in the living situation; and identifying and coordinating community resources and services to enable the toddler with a disability and the family to receive maximum benefit from EIS.

Special instruction

Includes the design of learning environments and activities that promote the toddler’s acquisition of skills in a variety of developmental areas, including cognitive processes and social interaction; curriculum planning, providing families with information, skills, and support related to enhancing the skill development of the child; and working with the toddler with a disability to enhance his development.

Speech-language pathology services

Include identification of children with communication or language disorders and delays in the development of communication skills, including the diagnosis and appraisal of specific disorders and delays in those skills; and provision of services for the habilitation, rehabilitation; or prevention of language disorders and delays in the development of communication skills Transportation and

related costs

Include the cost of travel and other costs that are necessary to enable an infant or toddler with a disability and the child’s family to receive EIS.

Vision services

Include diagnosis and appraisal of specific visual disorders, delays, and abilities that affect early childhood development; referral for medical or other professional services necessary for the habilitation or rehabilitation of visual functioning disorders.