Early Intervention for Special Needs Children Essay

The development and put throughation of primal interference activities for untried churlren who return a delay or who be at risk of infection for future delays atomic number 18 relatively recent phenomena in the fall in States. beforehand(predicate) treatment as an applied and academic landing field has developed earlier within the specialisation area of archean childhood special precept (ECSE), a field comprised of professionals from many disciplines. The genesis of ECSE in the coupled States whitethorn be traced to the formation, in 1968, of the handicap Childrens proto(prenominal) Education political program (HCEEP) branch within the United States Department of Education.Although opposite work had occurred in premature encumbrance prior to this time, the establishment of HCEEP declare oneselfd national recognition and federal funds to address other(a) intervention issues. Since 1968, rapid changes have occurred in the field of early intervention. The mos t crucial event touch oning on early intervention was the passage of commonplace Law 99-457 (P. L. hereafter) in 1986. This fair play mandates teaching method for disable children aged three to five years and provides both gallery and reinforcement for early intervention for children younger than age three.From the viewpoint of an extracurricular ob processr, the passage of only ogdoadeen years from the establishment of a specialty area to that specialty area demonstrating efficacy such that its tenets become law is admirable. However, these tenets, and the practices derived from them, are found on look for that has recently received negatively charged reviews. It is fade that ECSE has done well, but many challenges remain to be met. ill to conquer these challenges could result in a loss of valuable screen background that many have worked hard to achieve. Early Evidence for Early discussionAs the fields of special reading and early childhood education evolved, i ndicate were accumulating that early intervention could be effective. In a clean study, Skeels (1966) examined the effects of environsal stimulation on two comparable collections of infants. mentally retarded females acted as surrogate mothers for one group (n = 13), providing these children with attention and stimulation. xii infants with second-rate IQs remained in a nonstimulating orphanage environment. Eighteen months subsequent, the stimulated infants gained an average 27. 5 IQ points while the control group dropped 26.2 points. blackjack years later, Skeels (1966) continued to find differences amongst those who were placed in the enriched environment and those who were not. Of those in the experimental group, all were found to be self-supporting as adults. Four of these adults had completed college and, as a group, had a median high-school education. Of those in the control group, four adults had been basisalized. The median education for these adults was at the third -grade level. Additional evidence came from the work of Kirk (1965), who studied handicapped preschoolers.He compared institutionalized mentally handicapped preschoolers who received a preschool program with a comparable group who remained on the wards and received no intervention function. Children in the experimental program showed significant gains on intellectual measures. Six of the fifteen-experimental group children were able to leave the institution by age eight, while none of the children in the control group left the institution. Works researched provided additional evidence for the value of early intervention.establish upon these studies, the consensus emerged that childrens cognitive skills develop early in life and in truth rapidly, and that early enrichment can have profound influences on a childs future functioning. Although this consensus is no longer accepted without question, this philosophy, neverthe slight, played a major role in the acceptance of early interve ntion and helped to bring forth a social climate for legislation favoring handicapped children. Legislative fareivities both(prenominal) research and societal factors converged to provide momentum for the early intervention exploit in the 1960s.The changing social climate in the United States in the 1960s led to the passage of favorable legislation for several groups. Litigative and legislative activities occurred in the areas of civil rights, rights for the disadvantaged, and rights for the handicapped. A breakthrough for early intervention, focusing on disadvantaged children, was the economical Opportunity Act of 1964. Part of this act was tell at the establishment of Project Head jumpstart. This program was designed to provide early intervention for disadvantaged preschool children in the research found that these IQ gains disappeared after the children entered school.Based on societal and political pressures, Head buy the farm continued despite the negative research find ings. Arguments by researchers who questioned the findings and suggested that unmeasurable gains were being crap bolstered the pro-Head Start forces. The results of a nineteen-year longitudinal study on children who participated in Head Start (the Perry Pre-school Project) found a number of positive results. These benefits include (a) less guide for special education, (b) more positive school attitudes, (c) less arrests, (d) less teen pregnancy, and (e) better employment histories. other research has back up these findings. As an early intervention program, Head Start is the most known in the United States and has served over eight million preschoolers. Additionally, Head Start has had a major impact on early intervention for children with handicaps. The Economic Opportunity Acts Amendments of 1972 mandated that at least 10% of the total population served by Head Start be children with handicaps, giving Head Start the post of the first mandated, mainstreamed early intervention program in the United States.This occurred well before the concept of mainstreaming became popular in special education. peerless of the most important pieces of legislation regarding young children with handicaps was the Handicapped Childrens Early Education Assistance Act of 1968. This act established the Handicapped Childrens Early Education Program of the Department of Education, which has been responsible for funding the volume of innovative service projects in early intervention that occurred in the United States. This legislation may be viewed as the formal beginning of the field of early intervention for the handicapped.HCEEP programs will be discussed more fully later in this chapter in the section on current practices. The next major legislation to affect early intervention activities was an act that impacted significantly on educational practices for all handicapped childrenthe Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (P. L. 94-142). P. L. 94-142 provided for a complete, appropriate public education with related operate to all children with handicaps between the ages of three and twenty-one years. This act has been called the Bill of Rights for children with handicaps.The overall impact of this act on educational practice has been discussed in other places. While this act documented acceptance of the need for early intervention by the federal government, it likewise provided individual states with the option not to serve these young children. Unfortunately, this was an option many states adopted. In 1985, only twenty-four of the cubic decimeter states had mandated services for handicapped children under age five and only eight states had mandated services for handicapped children under age three. Although P. L.94-142 had a major impact on such intervention, supporters of early intervention were aware of the implementation problems snarled in serving young children. As a result of successes with preschool early intervention, the ne ed for services for even younger children was being heralded. Congress responded to these calls for early intervention in 1983 by passing the Amendments to the Education of the Handicapped Act (P. L. 98-199). These amendments provided financial incentives for states to extend early intervention service levels down to birth.Unfortunately, funding remained dependent upon the number of children served between the ages of three and five, and the act, in effect, diluted the funding available for the three- to five-year-old children. Also, incentives built into these amendments to encourage individual state participation were fainthearted and ineffectual. Lobbying groups for early intervention continued their activities to push through a law mandating early intervention for all young children with handicaps. In 1986, Congress responded by passing P. L.99-457, (Amendments to the Education of the Handicapped Act). P. L. 99-457 mandated that all preschool-aged children with handicaps receiv e a free and appropriate education by 1991. This law provided penalties for states that did not conform to the law. In addition, P. L. 99-457 created a new state grant program for infants and toddlers with handicaps. The passage of P. L. 99-457 has signaled a new era for early intervention. The federal government has recognized the need for early intervention (at least at the preschool level) and has provided funds to support it.P. L. 99-457 is also significant in other ways. Children need not be assort into narrowly defined categories to receive services. The importance of the family in development has been severely emphasized, especially for those children under age three years. For infants and toddlers, the definition of what constitutes intervention services has been broadened. For all children, a wide variety of possible intervention options has been acknowledged. It is clear that the passage of P. L. 99-457 is not the final stop for advocates of early intervention.Concerns r egarding how states will implement preschool services and how service policies will be defined remain. Questions regarding services for infants and toddlers are just beginning to be addressed. Many problems still exist, but Public Law 99-457 represents a major accomplishment for advocates of early intervention and a benefit for the children and families who will receive services. Problems in the Present Currently, early intervention activities regarding the development of and research on best practices are occurring.However, there is a growing tendency to question some of what has been accomplished by early intervention. Questions have arisen concerning the research on which early intervention activities are based and on the data from which cost have been obtained. These particular areasresearch and costshave traditionally provided a foundation for early intervention. This report curtly reviews concerns regarding knowledge of costs and the research base of early intervention. Early preventive ResearchIn a review of reviews, White, Bush, and Casto (1985-86) found overwhelming accord that early intervention is effective (94% of fifty-two studies). Unfortunately, they also found that a number of these reviews based this assertion primarily or solely on studies done with disadvantaged children. The benefits of early intervention for disadvantaged children are not a major issue of contention. Controversy ensues when these findings are over generalize to children with handicaps. A number of well-conducted reviews of early intervention for handicapped children has been completed.These reviews have been cautious with their conclusions, but overall the findings have been quite negative, particularly regarding the validity of the studies. Dunst, Snyder, and Mankinen (1987) found that 71% of the forty-nine studies they reviewed used methods that made the results scientifically uninterpretable. Other researchers essentially agreed with the Dunst, Snyder, and Mankinen findings. They then attempted to argue that the lack of effectualness found for early intervention programs was a result of the nature of studies in early intervention.Researchers used meta-analytic techniques to examine a number of common assumptions made regarding early intervention programs and found little empirical support for those assumptions. An super comprehensive review by Dunst, Snyder, and Mankinen ( 1987), which examined 105 studies by degree of causality and by type of child served, was no more positive for the early intervention movement. These authors stated that any conclusions regarding the efficacy of early intervention must(prenominal) be considered tentative and conditional.They noted that there is insufficient evidence at this time to conclude that there are cause-effect relationships between the interventions and outcomes observed. Dunst and associates however stated, in agreement with Casto and Mastropieri (1986), that children in early intervention pro grams do make positive developmental and behavioral changes across time but that the intent to which the interventions are responsible for observed effects is difficult to ascertain (p. 285 ). somewhat researchers have been critical of reviews of early intervention because they tend to exclude single-subject methodology research.Many of the problems in reviewing this literature base are related to the immanent nature of comparing this research, as no standard metric is apply across studies. Reviews of the single-subject literature in early intervention have been conducted and are favorable but have not significantly refuted other reviews. Single-subject studies do show strong evidence for a functional relationship between dependent and independent variables. These single-subject studies usually focus on a narrow, readable objective.Although this is useful for demonstrating functional relationships, it represents only parts of the whole of an early intervention program. Also, th ese studies are usually conducted under rigorous investigative control, a take not available in most early intervention programs. prospered programs frequently have problems when disseminated for use by a wider audience. Also, many single-subject studies do not sufficiently address generalization and maintenance issues. Researchers provide suggestions for single-subject research in early intervention, many of which are identical to those that need to be addressed by group research.