Objectives The presentation will: define/describe early intervention provide examples of early intervention strategies demonstrate an early intervention.

Objectives

The presentation will:• define/describe early intervention• provide examples of early intervention

strategies• demonstrate an early intervention program• discuss newly researched tools in assisting

early intervention• encourage active listening during this

presentation through the use of questioning• provide teachers with resources dealing with

early intervention

Early Intervention

Jodi Kelley

Katie Page

Carol Petrulak

Julie Thomas

What is Early Intervention?• Early intervention applies to children of school age or

younger who are discovered to have or be at risk of developing a handicapping condition or other special need that may affect their development.

• Early intervention is designed to improve outcomes for children with disabilities by providing early, appropriate, and intensive interventions.

• Early intervention can be remedial or preventative in naturecorrecting existing developmental problems or preventing their occurrence.

• It may focus on the child alone or on the child and the family together.

• Early intervention may:• Focus on the child alone or on the child & family together• Be center-based, home-based, hospital-based, or a combination

• Services range from identification (that is, the hospital or school screening and referral services) to diagnostic and direct intervention programs.

**Early intervention may start at any time between birth and school age; however, it should begin as early as possible.***

What is Early Intervention?

Why Intervene Early?3 primary reasons for intervening early with an exceptional child:

1. To enhance the child’s development2. To provide support and assistance to the family3. To maximize the child’s and family’s benefit to society

The rate of human learning and development is most rapid during the preschool years. Therefore, the timing of intervention becomes particularly important when child runs the risk of missing an opportunity to learn during a state of maximum readiness.

~If the most teachable moments or stages of greatest readiness are not taken advantage of, a child may have difficulty learning a particular skill at a later time.

Why Intervene Early?

Early intervention services also have a significant impact on the parents and siblings of an exceptional infant or young child.

They often feel: • Disappointment• Social isolation• Added stress• Frustration• Helplessness

• The compounded stress of the presence of the exceptional child may affect the family’s well-being and interfere with the child’s development.

Early Intervention Can Help Families

Early intervention can result in:• parents having improved attitudes about themselves and their child• improved information and skills for teaching their child• more release time for leisure and employment

*Parents of gifted preschoolers also need early services to that they may better provide the supportive and nurturing environment needed for the child.

*By intervening early, society will reap the maximum benefits as well. The child’s increased developmental and educational gains and decreased dependence upon social institutions, the family’s increased ability to cope with the presence of an exceptional child, and perhaps the child’s increased eligibility for employment, all provide economic as well as social benefits.

Is Early Intervention Really Effective?

• Quatative and qualitative evidence prove that early intervention increases the developmental and educational gains for child, improves the functioning of the family, and reaps long-term benefits for society.

• Early intervention has been shown to result in the child:

• needing fewer special education and other habilitative services later in life

• being retained in grade less often• being indistinguishable from non handicapped classmates

years after intervention

• The highly specialized, comprehensive services necessary to produce the desired developmental gains are often, on a short-term basis, more costly than traditional school-aged service delivery models. However, there are significant examples of long-term cost savings that result from such early intervention programs.

• Studies have found that when schools invest $3,000 for 1 year of preschool education for a child, they immediately begin to recover their investments through savings in special education services.

• Public schools saved $3,353 because children with preschool education had fewer years in grades.

Is Early Intervention Cost Effective?

Is Early Intervention Cost Effective?• Another study calculated the total cumulative costs to age 18 of

special education services to child beginning intervention at: (a) birth; (b) age 2; (c) age 6; and (d) at age 6 with no eventual movement to regular education. She found that the total costs were actually less if begun at birth!

• Total cost of special services begun at birth was $37,273 and total cost begun at age 6 was between $46,816 and $53,340!

• During the 2006-2007 program year Head Start had 976,150 children enrolled and 95,547 children enrolled in Early Head Start. The average cost per child in Head Start is $7,429 and for Early Head Start $10,591.

• (Early Head Start is birth to 3 and Head Start is 3 and up- preschool age)

Are There Critical Features To Include In Early Intervention?

• The age of the child at the time of intervention

• Parent Involvement

• The intensity and/or the amount of structure of the program model

Individualized Literacy Plans (ILP) What are ILP’s?• Preventive interventions aimed at young children who are

thought to be at risk for developing reading programs developed by the classroom teacher in partnership with the Early Literacy Support Team, parents, and/or guardians.

• Children fall into this group if they do not reach certain benchmarks that have been set or because of teacher and/or parental concerns.

• Each child has their own literacy basket that includes items that meet their needs and pertain to the interests of the child.

• Each session is five to ten minutes long. Child works one on one with a teacher.

What Should Be Included in Basket?

• Alphabet books

• Letter BINGO

• Colored sand for child to write in

• Letter stampers

• Play dough to shape letters

• Different writing utensils

• Magnetic letters and boards

What Are the Goals for ILP’s?

• Name writing

• Upper/lowercase identification

• Developing fine motor skills

Direct Instruction• Direct Instruction (DI) is a model for teaching that emphasizes

well-developed and carefully planned lessons designed around small learning increments and clearly defined and prescribed teaching tasks. It is based on the theory that clear instruction eliminating misinterpretations can greatly improve and accelerate learning.

• Its creators, Siegfried Engelmann and Dr. Wesley Becker and their c olleagues believe and have proved that correctly applied, DI can improve academic performance as well as certain affective behaviors.

• It is currently in use in thousands of schools across the nation as well as in Canada, the UK and Australia.

• A crucial element in the implementation of DI in most cases is change.

Direct Instruction

• Requires hard work, dedication and commitment to all students.

• It is crucial that all concerned adopt and internalize the belief that all students, if properly taught, can learn.

• A $59 million study that compared 20 different programs used in the federal government’s Follow Through concluded that of all the programs studied, Direct Instruction produced the biggest gains in students’ basic skills and thinking abilities-even in self-esteem.

Language for Learning• Direct Instruction Language Program for Pre-K through second grade that is

designed to teach young pre-readers language, concepts, information, and knowledge that will be beneficial to them in a classroom setting as they are learning to read.

• Can be used as part of a pre-school or kindergarten curriculum; to give a head start to children who are developmentally delayed or at-risk; or for children in first or second grade who have not yet acquired essential language and social skills.

• Curriculum comprises of 150 lessons organized into six groups of skills: Actions, Description of Objects, Information and Background Knowledge, Instructional Words and Problem-Solving Concepts, Classification, and Problem-Solving Strategies and Applications.

• Program uses an explicit instructional approach, entailing scripted lessons, signaled responses, immediate error correction, cumulative review, and mastery learning.

• Lessons are taught to small groups of 4 to 8 students in the beginning stages and 8-12 students for those who are more advanced. It can be used for whole group instruction as well.

Early Repairs for Reading Difficulties

• Recent findings drawn from the meta-analysis of intervention studies have shown that the majority of children who experience early reading difficulties can become functional readers if they are provided with early and intensive remediation tailored to their individual needs.

• It can also be concluded from recent studies that many impaired readers can be successfully remediated with less intensive and extensive remediation provided that the intervention is provided at an early point in their reading development.

• One of the important objectives of future research is to develop the means for determining which children require intensive one-to-one tutoring to be successfully remediated and which children can be successfully remediated with small-group instruction.

Early Repairs for Reading Difficulties

• A growing number of neurologists and educators say that with the latest diagnostic tests, children at high risk for reading problems can be identified in preschool and treated before they ever begin to read.

• The newer tests, available in computerized versions, measure a child’s fluency with the skills that are the foundation of reading.

• The National Early Literacy Panel has found that these assessments, when given to 3- and 4-year old children predict later reading problems as effectively as they do when they are given to kindergarten and first grade students.

• In the Head Start Program, screening and teaching are increasingly tied together, and a detailed skills assessment is part of the school year routine.

Early Repairs for Reading Difficulties

M-Class: CIRCLE, developed by Dr. Susan Landry of the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, measures the skills linked to reading success.

Screening can uncover and define reading difficulties. Poor children can benefit the most from preschool intervention- Dr. Peggy McCardle, the chief of the child development branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

WRAP UP

Early InterventionResources

National Center for Learning Disabilities Literacy Program: Get Ready to Read!. Get Ready to Read! Is an early literacy program designed to help parents, early educators and child care professionals ensure that young children are equipped with the fundamental skills necessary for learning to read. The goal of Get Ready to Read! is to screen four-year-olds for early literacy skills before they enter kindergarten and provide skill-strengthening activities to ensure reading success.

IDEA Practices. This site provides information and resources on early intervention and special education practices.

NICHCY. Compiles disability-related resources for each state, and creates State Resource Sheets. Each state-specific resource sheet will help you locate organization and agencies within your state that address disability-related issues, including listings by state of the early intervention and special education program contacts.

Bridges4Kids Disability-specific Topic Pages. From Early Childhood Disorders to Learning Disabilities,

Bridges4Kids provides topic pages on 85 different disorders, disabilities and diseases. Each page contains information on Education & Classroom Accommodations, National Resources & Websites, Articles, Medical Information, and more.

Organizations-Early InterventionNational Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (NECTAC). A program of

the Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, funded through the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), U. S. Department of Education.

U. S., Department of Education’s official website.

Division for Early Childhood, Council for Exceptional Children.

Early Childhood Education. A section of the U. S. Department of Education’s website that is dedicated to providing information and resources related to early childhood education.

The Institutes For The Achievement of Human Potential. A nonprofit educational organization that serves children by introducing parents to the field of early child development. Parents learn how to enhance significantly the development of their children physically, intellectually and socially in a joyous and sensible way.

Zero to Three. A national, nonprofit, multi-disciplinary organization that advocates informing, educating and supporting adults who influence the lives of infants and toddlers.

First Signs. An organization aiming to educate parents, healthcare providers, early childhood educators, and other professionals in order to ensure the best developmental outcome for every child.

National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL). Focuses on enhancing the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children from birth through age eight.

Early Childhood Outcomes Center. Promotes the development and implementation of child and family outcome and measures for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities.

Research and Training Center on Early Childhood Development (RTC). Designed to provide research-based information to parents and early childhood professionals on interventions associated with the healthy mental, behavioral, communication, early literacy, and social-emotional state of young children with or at risk for developmental disabilities.

Organizations-Early Intervention

Center for Evidence-Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior. Promotes the use of evidence-based practice to meet the needs of young children who have, or are at risk for, problem behavior.

Tracking, Referral and Assessment Center for Excellence (TRACE). The major goal of TRACE is to identify and promote the use of evidence-based practices and models for improving child find, referral, early identification, and eligibility determination for infants, toddlers, and young children with developmental delays or disabilities who are eligible for early intervention or preschool special education.

IDEA Infant and Toddler Coordinators Association. This association promotes the mutual assistance, cooperation, and exchange of information and ideas in the administration of the IDEA Infant and Toddler Program. It also provides support to the state coordinators.

Organizations-Early Intervention

References

U. S. Department of Education. What is Early Intervention? www.kidsource.com

First Signs, Inc. (January 2008) Your Local School District. www.firstsigns.org.

O’Neil, John. (October 4, 2006) Early Repairs In Foundation For Reading. The New York Times.

Wrightslaw, (2008). Early Intervention (Part C of IDEA).

Vellutino, Frank R. & Scanlon, Donna M. (2002). Emergent Literacy Skills, Early Instruction, and Individual Differences as Determinants of Difficulties in Learning to Read: The Case for Early Intervention. Handbook of Early Literacy Research. New York: The Guilford Press.

References

Schweinhart, L.J., and D.P. Weikart, Young Children Grow Up: The Effects Of The Perry Preschool Program On Youths Through Age 19. Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. 1980.

Wood, M.E. “Costs of Intervention Programs.” In C. Garland and others, eds., Early Intervention For Children With Special Needs And Their Families: Findings and Recommendations. Westar Series Paper No. 11. Seattle, WA: University of Washington, 1981. ED 207 278.

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