What is early intervention?
Early intervention has been defined as a systematic and planned anchor to achieve a series of developments initiated in the first five years of life.
According to IDEA, early intervention services are designed to meet the developmental needs of children who have been diagnosed with delayed developmental delay in areas of physical, cognitive, communicative, social, emotional or adaptive development or from development to age of three years. Early intervention programs aim to minimize the impact of physical, cognitive, emotional limitations and resource constraints by supporting the child's development by indirectly influencing the child through structured experiences and by developing the environment that is of interest to the child (Erdiller, 2010; Karoly, Kilburn and Cannon, 2005). Preparing early intervention programs according to the characteristics of the target group is important for the effectiveness of the program. When the target group of the intervention is determined, different types of families can be identified according to single parenting, ethnic origin, socioeconomic level, low education level, substance dependence, mother's age or other characteristics, as well as developmentally high risk (such as low IQ), low birth children with or without developmental disabilities can also be identified (Karoly et al., 2005).
Turkey is 5 years old and under approximately 10% of the total population by the year 2010. Approximately 63% of these children live in urban areas and 37% live in rural areas. In addition, according to 2008 data, 28.8% of poor children are between 0-5 years of age (UNICEF, 2013).
1/5 of babies born each year have a risk of developmental retardation. 1/4 of these babies face significant developmental delays at 5 years of age and 20-30% of them use special education services for social or family reasons such as lack of stimuli (Derrington, Shapiro and Smith, 1999).
Approximately 1.5 million babies come into the world every year in our country (Sola and Diken, 2008; TUIK, 2010). It was determined that 3,7% of these babies had a developmental problem and 10% had a risk of developmental delay with low birth weight and similar (Yeşinel, 2006).
Three prevention levels are mentioned in early intervention. The aim of primary prevention studies is to reduce the development of developmental disorders. The purpose of secondary prevention studies is to reduce the degree of impairment and reduce the continuity. The aim of the tertiary degree prevention studies is to prevent or reduce the difficulties of the disorder. Those involved in early intervention; children with developmental delay, are children at risk, children in biological risk status. Early intervention programs aiming at supporting children with developmental delays or under risk due to poverty and other environmental factors are generally based on two main ideas. First, the early experience has a significant impact on subsequent development stages. The period from birth to 3 years is a critical period in development and, as is widely accepted, intelligence is not stable. However, when the stimuli required for children are not provided, they are not able to reach their potential development. Second, poor parents are ineffective in providing and stimulating stimuli for their children's cognitive and language development due to their inability to access resources. All of the intervention programs implemented in early childhood have all the needs of children. Although these programs share a common purpose, they differ according to the services they offer to children and families and based on the results that each program is expected to develop.
Some programs provide educational services only to prepare children for school, while others aim to pregnant mothers before delivery; some of them are interested in the holistic function of the family and serve children and their families together (Karoly et al., 2005).
Preparing early intervention programs according to the characteristics of the target group is important for the effectiveness of the program. While determining the target group of the intervention, different types of families can be identified according to single parenting, ethnic origin, socioeconomic level, low education level, substance dependence, mother's age or other characteristics, as well as developmentally high risk (such as low IQ), born with low birth weight. or children with developmental disabilities can also be identified (Karoly et al., 2005).
It is important to use developmental screening tests regularly to monitor development in children and to identify early deviations. These tests enable us to identify children with developmental delays, children in biological risk situations, and children in risk situations. Early intervention programs should be prepared with the transdisciplinary study for identified children (child developmentists carry out a transdisciplinary study with neurology, audiology and language speech disorders, physical therapy, child mental health professionals).
REFERENCES
Erdiller, B. Z. (2010). Basic theories and approaches in early childhood education. H. İ. Diken (Ed.), In early childhood education (pp. 56-90). Ankara: Pegema Academy.
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. (2013). Community-based early childhood services presentation guide. Ankara: UNICEF Turkey Country Office
Sola, C. and Diken, İ. H. (2008). Determining the needs of mothers with premature and low birth weight children under the risk of developmental delay. Ankara University Faculty of Educational Sciences Special Education Journal, 9(2), 21-36.
Karoly, A. L., Kilburn, R. M., & Cannon, J. (2005). Early childhood interventions, proven results, future promise. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation.
Yeşinel, S. (2006). Factors affecting the somatic development of very low weight prematüre. (PHd thesis, Ministry of Health Bakırköy Maternity Women and Children Diseases Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul).
Morkoç, Ö. Ç., & Acar, E. A. (2014). Determining the effectiveness of the multi-purpose early intervention program for 4-5 year-old children. Web Site: www. kuyeb. com, 7, 2015.
Derrington, T., Shapiro, B., & Smith, B. (1999). The effectiveness of early ıntervention services (Unpublished manuscript). Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities.
Asst. Prof. Dr. Berrak DUMLUPINAR & Res. Asst. Çağla Duran
