Last Updated on October 4, 2023 by Editorial Team
Every child is gifted. They just unwrap their packages at different times. At the same time, a therapeutic plan or educational strategy for one child might be ineffective for another youngster. Early intervention works and tends to enhance the prognosis. This is because human learning and growth occur fastest throughout the first few years of life.
Moreover, early intervention in special education can alter the course of a child’s development and enhance health, language, cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes for those with special needs.
Rapid medical technological advancements have substantially improved high-risk births, increasing the number of newborns who may experience developmental delays and impairments. Therefore, in this article, we will understand the importance of early intervention and why it becomes crucial.
Early intervention in special education: Reasons why it acts in favor of parents and the kids
Infant and toddler development can be worked upon, and early intervention can support children with impairments in realizing their full potential. While it’s ideal for addressing a developmental issue before a kid turns three, early intervention is still crucial over the following school years. The instructor and parents may have misread the youngster as having little interest in or motivation to study despite his learning problem.
Programs for early intervention might be preventative, curative, or remedial. We must justify our viewpoint to understand the significance of early action.
Listed below are a few favorable factors for both parents and children
1. Family’s well-being
Early intervention programs significantly impact the parents and siblings of an outstanding newborn or young kid. Young families with outstanding children frequently experience disappointment, social isolation, additional stress, frustration, ongoing grief, worry, and powerlessness.
The additional strain brought on by raising a special needs kid may have a negative impact on the family’s health, which might impede the child’s development. Early intervention can help parents feel better about themselves and their children, have better knowledge of teaching their children, and have more time for fun and leisure activities. The development of communication affects subsequent academic achievement and lays the foundation for literacy.
2. Improvement in independent functioning
Early intervention is also advantageous to society since it guarantees the child’s educational and developmental benefits, reducing the need for social institutions. Therefore, both economic and social advantages are provided by the family’s improved capacity to handle the presence of an extraordinary kid, as well as the child’s greater employability.
3. Behavioral development
The development of a child’s behavior includes their capacity to control their actions, attention, and impulses. Children’s capacity to have healthy connections with others and academic success strongly correlates with their capacity for self-regulation. Early intervention often seeks to alter the antisocial behavior in the family, community, and even in the school, which over time aids in developing personality types.
4. Enabling the youngster to realize their full potential.
Parents are the child’s primary teachers. The skills and techniques will be taught to assist the kid in overcoming developmental obstacles and achieving their full potential through early intervention programs. This can assist a youngster in accelerating their pace of growth while gaining new abilities and behaviors without facing serious obstacles.
Children with delayed communication skills may become upset and engage in difficult behaviors to compensate for their shortcomings. When communication is delayed, it is difficult to convey needs and wishes; as a result, physical responses like biting or beating replace them. Supports and techniques will help your child’s communication needs during the intervention.
5. Enhancement of normal environment
It creates a loving and supportive environment for the whole family. Children will benefit when parents and teachers work together to incorporate new developments into the child’s daily routines since they are more comfortable at home. Parents could feel more powerful by taking on a new responsibility to advance their child’s development. The infant will quickly exhibit wonderful growth due to the friendly surroundings.
Therefore, we live in a time when the idea of a kid has undergone fast change, and research on the typical course of child development has made significant progress. Hence, while some learning disabilities are modest and others may significantly influence a person’s academic performance, early intervention can minimize the symptoms in all areas.
Possible downsides if early intervention is ignored
The key to a child’s growth is early intervention.
Understandably, it may be difficult for a parent to accept that their kid is displaying indicators of special needs. However, if these symptoms are disregarded and the child is not promptly recognized, the issues may worsen as they age. Therefore, parents must recognize and treat the problem from a young age.
More than a million new brain connections are made every second in the first few years of life. Connections are decreased through a process known as pruning after this period of high expansion, making brain circuits more effective. Early linguistic abilities and higher cognitive processes emerge second after developing sensory pathways such as those for fundamental vision and hearing.
According to a Brain Plasticity study[1] by Bryan Kolb, a young child’s brain is thought to be more “plastic” because of this early period of rapid neurological development. It is simpler and more effective to influence a baby’s developing brain architecture than to rewire certain portions of its circuitry in later life.
Early intervention is essential throughout a child’s formative years as it can lessen the consequences of young children at risk or diagnosed with developmental problems, increasing the likelihood that they will be independent as adults. In the first three years of life, a baby’s brain connections are the most malleable. It is more difficult to break these ties as time goes on. These connections form the brain circuits that support learning, behavior, and thought.
What does the research point?
For the sake of both the parent and the kid, taking action is necessary as soon as developmental concerns come to notice. Any delay can put the child’s growth at stake. The greatest person to judge the child is the parent itself.
There is a rise in the proportion of young children with developmental problems. There has been a commensurate rise in the number of early intervention centers to meet the learning and educational demands of young children with special educational needs.
A study[2] by Chee Keong Chua talks about how early intervention deserves a lot of attention given the rising frequency and awareness of young children with special needs. Early intervention programs have the potential to alter a child’s course in development and enhance outcomes for kids, families, and communities.
Final words
Since learning and development occur at their accelerated rates throughout the preschool years, early intervention is crucial. The goal is for the kids to develop physically, cognitively, and emotionally. A successful outcome for them is more probable when families collaborate with educators and professionals.
Families will be assisted in adding support to routine activities they share with their children, thanks to early intervention. It offers a variety of learning opportunities for kids, including those during play and other activities like getting dressed, brushing their teeth, cooking, eating, bathing, assisting with household tasks, getting ready for bed, and many more. The family has a better grasp of their kid’s demands and how to break learning down into manageable chunks for their child through intervention.
Children enjoy learning in nearly any activity and want to learn more when they know what is expected of them and can succeed. Additionally, early intervention offers parents tools, encouragement, and knowledge to improve their child’s communication abilities. Parents may be sure they are promoting their child’s communication development when they collaborate with a professional who has training in early childhood. The child has to understand that he is a miracle and that no other child like him has ever existed before and will never exist again.
References
- Kolb, B., & Gibb, R. (2011). Brain Plasticity and Behaviour in the Developing Brain. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 20(4), 265-276. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222570/
- CHUA, Chee Keong; WONG, Chong Lee. EARLY INTERVENTION: ITS IMPORTANCE AND BENEFITS. European Journal of Special Education Research, [S.l.], may 2017. ISSN 25012428. Available at: <https://oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejse/article/view/738>. Date accessed: 17 nov. 2022. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejse.v0i0.738.
Dr. Deepak Kansal, MBBS MD (Psychiatry) is currently working as Nodal Officer of the District Mental Health program at Civil Hospital Sangrur for the last 3 years. Apart from psychiatry and substance use patients, Dr. Deepak also treats children with neurodevelopment disorders including Intellectual disability, specific learning disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and other psychiatric disorders. His research work involved studying psychiatric comorbidities in cancer patients. You can follow him on Linkedin