• Very young kids can get early intervention help if they have developmental delays or specific health conditions.
• Early intervention helps children meet developmental milestones through a wide range of services.
• An evaluation can confirm whether your child is eligible.

Early intervention is a system of services that helps babies and toddlers with developmental delays or disabilities. Early intervention focuses on helping eligible babies and toddlers learn the basic and brand-new skills that typically develop during the first three years of life, such as:

• physical (reaching, rolling, crawling, and walking)
• cognitive (thinking, learning, solving problems)
• communication (talking, listening, understanding)
• social/emotional (playing, feeling secure and happy) and
• self-help (eating, dressing).

Early intervention is for children from birth to age 3. To be eligible, your child must have either:

• A developmental delay—be far behind other kids his age.
• A specific health condition that will probably lead to a delay—this includes genetic disorders, birth defects and hearing loss, but typically not learning or attention issues like dyslexia and ADHD.

If an infant or toddler has a disability or a developmental delay in one or more of these developmental areas, that child will likely be eligible for early intervention Program. Those programs will be tailored to meet the child’s individual needs and may include:

• Audiology or hearing services
• Speech and language services
• Counseling and training for a family
• Occupational therapy
• Physical therapy
• Psychological services

The term “developmental delay” is an important one in early intervention. Broadly speaking, it means that a child is delayed in some area of development. There are five areas in which development may be affected:

• Cognitive development
• Physical development, including vision and hearing
• Communication development
• Social or emotional development
• Adaptive development

Our Normal Developmental Milestones page outlines some of the typical skills that babies and toddlers learn by certain ages. It’s a good resource to consult if you’re concerned that a child may have a developmental delay.

If you have concerns about your baby or toddler developmental delay, you can contact D’Soul Child Development Centre early intervention program and ask for an evaluation.