The Effectiveness of Early Intervention Journal Club #3 Jenny Nugent, Lindsay Records, Mary Rodriguez

Background of early intervention  Education laws did not include the birth to 3 population until it was added as part C to IDEA (individuals with disabilities education act) in 1986  Primary goals: enhance development of infants and toddlers with disabilities, reduce education costs, improve outcomes for children  Includes services for children who display developmental delay and children who are at risk for disability  Biological (low birth rate)  Environmental (low socioeconomic status)

OT and early intervention key points:  Most effective if family-centered, in the child’s natural context, and parents are actively involved in therapy sessions  The more early intervention services a child receives, the greater the outcomes for the child  Uses implicit learning techniques, modeling techniques for feedings or methods to enhance play, and coaxing techniques encouraging parents to feed, position or play with the child

Research shows early intervention works!  71%-76% of children receiving early intervention services demonstrated improvement across performance areas, including social relationships, reasoning, problem solving, feeding, dressing, and other self-care  52%-64% of children receiving early intervention met developmental age expectations at age 3  90% of parents reported that early intervention services had improved their ability to help their children develop and learn.

Application to OT Practice  Practice area in our profession  Able to apply our knowledge and understanding of the relationship between the person, environment, and occupations to provide interventions  Understand therapy services include the family unit  Work in an interdisciplinary teams

Ozzi’s Story: The Power of Early Intervention  At 28 weeks in Tavia’s pregnancy, she was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and HELLP, her liver and other body organs were shutting down  After a Life Flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Ozzi was welcomed into the world at 2 lbs., 2 ozs, and 14.5” long  After 79 days in the NICU, Ozzi was discharged to go home  You Tube video: (start at 2:55 and end at 6:00)

Application to OT Practice  Advocate for services for birth to 3 years  Know resources to refer concerned parents  Alaska Infant Learning Program   Nebraska’s Early Learning Connections 

Strengths and Weakness Strengths  Provided great background information on early intervention  Established the importance of Occupational Therapy’s role in early intervention  Identified the need for more evidence-based research on family involvement in interventions Weaknesses  There are few longitudinal studies to verify outcomes: only looked at NEILS longitudinal study  Only 3 articles for review of effective early intervention

Discussion Questions  Fieldwork experiences  Experience at MSSCA  Other’s experiences  Can these findings about early intervention in the birth to 3 population be carried over to other OT settings?

Resources  AlaskaILP. (2012, December,11). Ozzi’s story: the power of early intervention [video file]. Retrieved from  Case-Smith, J. (2013). From the Desk of the Guest Editor – Systematic reviews of the effectiveness of interventions used in occupational therapy early childhood services. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 67,