Early Intervention in Child Development

Introduction

Early childhood period is the most important period in a child's life. In such an important period, when the development process is adversely affected, it causes children to experience developmental delay or developmental delay risk. Early childhood is very important for children with developmental delay. The earlier a child with developmental delay is diagnosed, the greater the likelihood of benefiting from early intervention programs to address the child's needs (Bruder, 2000). Therefore, determining the risk of delay in children as early as possible and initiating the necessary early intervention studies is of great importance in minimizing the problems that may occur in later periods (Akoğlu & Şipal, 2012).

Early intervention consists of programs developed for families of infants and young children who have developmental delays or inadequacies or are at risk group. In the most general definition, they are programs aiming to minimize or prevent the effects of cognitive physical and social-emotional limitations by supporting the development and learning of children who have developmental disabilities or whose development is at risk from birth (Bayhan, 2012; Blackman, 2002). Early intervention and prevention are more focused on the long-term social and economic benefit of the child, the family, and therefore the community, rather than solving a problem. In this direction, children whose development is appropriately supported in the early stages of their lives are more likely to adapt easily to social life in the future and are less affected by negative environmental conditions. Therefore, the most important objective of prevention and early intervention studies is to change the balance between risk and protective factors (Aytekin& Bayhan, 2015).

Early intervention programs with family participation aim to reduce the effects of adverse situations for children and their families, as well as to teach healthy and effective parenting practices or gain skills necessary for those practices (Kılınç & Aral, 2015). Early intervention programs serve purposes such as providing parents with social support, providing information on topics like the importance of family support in the early years in the development of the baby, child development and discipline, providing education and job opportunities. For these purposes, early intervention programs must be developed systematically and conducted in a planned manner. In this process, it is very important that professionals from different disciplines and families act as a team and cooperate. (Karoly, Kilburn & Cannon, 2005). In this section, information regarding the importance of early intervention programs, their historical development, early intervention stages, early intervention models and the importance of teamwork in early intervention are presented.