Future of Early Intervention With Infants and Toddlers for Whom Typical Experiences Are Not Effective

Abstract

Early intervention for infants and toddlers began with high hopes, but became mired in overspecialization, bureaucracy, and turf guarding. Nevertheless, two important advances in the field have been (a) a recognition that the child’s natural caregivers are in the best position to be the intervention agents and, concomitantly, (b) a rethinking of the role of early interventionist from directly working with the child to consulting with the child’s caregivers. Future directions for the field are (a) understanding the dose and quality of intervention the child receives from natural caregivers and (b) determining the subgroups or “clusters” of families in early intervention.

Keywords

collaboration/consultation early intervention families/parents

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