This is for an additional reference guide for learners or students who wish to learn more about children with special needs and what is early intervention to infants and toddlers.

1. EARLY INTERVENTION
OF INFANTS AND
TODDLERS
BY: EVELYN F. CORTEZ

2. Early Intervention
• helps keep children on a path by making
the most of their abilities and skills
developed during the early years.
• Early intervention services also support
the parents and siblings of children with
special needs.

3. Families often experience frustration,
stress, disappointment, and helplessness.

4. • Early intervention helps young kids work
towards meeting developmental
milestones.
• Infants and toddlers may qualify for help
if they have developmental delays or
specific health conditions.
• To find out if kids are eligible, they have
to be evaluated.

5. There are lots of skills that develop in the
first three years of a child’s life. Some
infants and toddlers meet developmental
milestones more slowly than expected.
This is called developmental delay. Early
interven -tion can help infants and
toddlers with delays catch up in their
development.

6. What are early intervention services?
It is more about special education,
the services and supports that help
some kids make progress in school.

7. There is a law that makes sure there’s a
help available for younger kids and their
families is called the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Early intervention is like special education
for school – age kids , but it’s for eligible
infants and toddlers.

8. It gives them the support they need to
make progress in life skills.
There are also services for families who
care for them.

9. Early intervention focuses on skills in these
five areas.
Physical skills (reaching, crawling, walking,
drawing, building)
Cognitive skills (thinking, learning, solving
problems)
Communication skills (talking, listening,
understanding and others)

10. Self - help or adaptive skills (eating,
dressing)
Social or emotional skills (playing,
interacting with others)

11. The states receive IDEA funds for early
intervention services must serve all infants
and toddlers with developmental delays,
or established risk conditions and also
those infants and toddlers who fall under
two types of documented risk, biological
and environmental.

12. A. Developmental delays are significant
delays or atypical patterns of
development that make children eligible
for early intervention.
B. Established risk conditions include
diagnosed physical or medical
conditions that almost always result in
developmental delay or disability.

13. Examples: Down syndrome, fragile
X syndrome, fetal alcohol spectrum
disorder (FASD), brain or spinal cord
damage, sensory impairments, and
maternal acquired immune deficiency
syndrome (AIDS).

14. C. Biological risk conditions include
pediatric histories or current biological
conditions (e.g., significantly
premature birth, low birth weight) that
result in a greater than usual probability of
developmental delay or disability.

15. D. Environmental risk conditions include
factors such as extreme poverty, parental
substance abuse, homelessness, abuse or
neglect, and parental intellectual
impairment, which are associated with a
higher than normal probability of
developmental delay.

16. Through early intervention, babies and
toddlers can get services at home or in the
community. Different types of specialists
work with kids depending on which skills
are delayed. Getting services early helps
many kids catch up and thrive in school
and in life overall.