Disadvantages Of Early Intervention

Interventions should be implemented in order to reach or improve developmental achievements and minimize disability. Early Intervention is composed of multidisciplinary services that are provided to children from birth to 5 years of age in order to promote health and well-being of the child, improve and enhance achievement of milestones of development, minimize developmental delays, remediate existing or emerging disabilities, prevent functional deterioration and promote adaptive parenting and overall family functioning by providing individualized developmental, educational and therapeutic services for the child and advices, education and support to the family (Shonkoff & Meisels, 2000). Hence the main aim of early intervention is to prevent

Studies show that early interventions provided for children with social and behavioural problems which are seen in children diagnosed with conditions such as Autism provides better outcomes(Bruinsma, Koegel, & Koegel, 2004) Literature has also revealed that preterm children who are vulnerable to developmental issues gain benefit from early interventions however it was seen that more improvements of the development of cognition is gained than the other domains (Barrera, Doucet, & Kitching, 1990; Brooks-gunn et al., 2011; Orton, Spittle, Doyle, Anderson, & Boyd, 2009) Advantages of early interventions are gained not only by the children and professionals but the parents’ as well. Studies reveal that families prefer early interventions and actively participate in the programmes. The compliance is more and parents feel that they have a major role in making key decisions about the child which aids in successful implementation of the interventions which in turn improves outcome (Bailey, Hebbeler, Scarborough, Spiker, & Mallik,

Early identification of children at risk of or presenting with developmental delays or disabilities can promote prevention, minimization, treatment and intervention for disability and lessen its impact on the functioning of the child and family (Powell & Prober, 2003). However it has been found that early detection of children with developmental delay is quite poor especially early detection of children at risk for developmental delay (Roberts et al., 2008). Studies done in India show that majority of the children are referred late for interventions for developmental delay compared to western countries. Hence Paediatricians and other specialists have a key role in recognizing children who are vulnerable for developmental delays and referring them for intervention at the earliest (Sengupta, Kumar, Gupta, Anthony, & Nizamie,