Early Intervention Essay

With the prevalence of autism at an all-time high, there are many benefits to identifying a child as early as possible. Identification and intervention can dramatically improve outcomes for children with ASD. Children have increased neural plasticity at a very early age, making it easier for children to learn new skills such as communication, play, and overall skill development. Early intervention will improve children’s behaviors and remediate areas of weaknesses. Also, according to the New Jersey Early Intervention System program, early intervention makes the transition into preschool easier for children diagnosed with autism. In addition, parent-implemented intervention usually leads to better parent-child interaction, improved communication, behavior, and better maternal knowledge of autism.

In another study, research was focused on how the family’s choices, social life, and other activities are affected by that fact that one of their children has autism. This study was performed through 9 families who all had a boy with autism, and these participants provided information through interviews and information about their family life. Some parents along with teachers and other specialists came up for the routine while others allowed their child to be a decision maker in what they wanted. In both cases, it seemed to be a fifty-fifty chance of it being a total success or needing more work. Once a routine was found successful, it became an integrated part of the family life. Parents had other siblings become part of the routines and moved things around in their own lives to help the child have better success

Karst, J., & Hecke, A. (2012). Parent and Family Impact of Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review and Proposed Model for Intervention

Parents with autistic children should evaluate all sides of an ASD child’s learning environment and whether he or she should be homeschooled or in school. This is an important topic because there are so many parents and teachers dealing with children with autism and wrecking their brain to figure what’s a better learning environment for their special little ones. No one seem to be taking the time out to come up with strategies or learning plans to help ASD children.

Autism, as defined by the DSM-V, is the demonstration (either in the past or in the present) of deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, and deficits in developing maintaining and understanding relationships (autismspeaks.org). Autism is a spectrum disorder with varying levels of severity. Some children may be highly functioning while others remain non-verbal. These deficits can negatively affect a child’s ability to learn and participate in extra-curricular activities. In the classroom, a disruptive behavior may even negatively impact the learning of the other students. Outside of the classroom, communication and relationship barriers typically result in children with autism not participating in sports or other physically demanding activities. Swimming can be a valuable addition to education programs as it is both enjoyable for the subject and contributes to motor development (Mosher 1975 and Wing 1976). A well designed and carefully implemented instructional aquatics program can be instrumental in promoting health and wellness (Auxter, Pyfer, & Huettig, 2001; Lepore, Gayle, & Stevens, 1998). A group swimming and aquatic exercise program has the potential for providing exercise in a social environment and this may have positive aspects on social development and self-esteem in addition to positive effects on health for children with ASD.

The author was very thorough in the discussion of his study. The author used a statistical table to show each area covered in the survey. The author also covered in detail the procedures they used and how they found their study subjects and the programs use to affect a positive outcome.

The study performed by Estes and colleagues (Estes, Rogers, Greenson, Winter & Dawson, 2015) was designed with two purposes in mind. First, the researchers wanted to study the efficacy of intensive early intervention for children with autism versus the usual course of treatment immediately after discontinuing 2 years of early intervention therapy at age 4. Second, the researchers wanted to study the sustained effects on the children who received intensive early intervention compared to the children who receive usual course of treatment in the same experimental and control groups 2 years later at 6 years of age. Estes et al. hypothesized that the children in the experimental group will be more likely to maintain their gains from early

In this study, the researchers were comparing two groups of children with high- functioning autism that received interventions. The treatment group participated in an intervention that was a modification of another treatment designed to improve social skills but had been adapted for children with high functioning autism. The control group received the original treatment. The researchers believed that the group receiving treatment with the adapted program would have a better grasp of taught skills than did the control group. As was hypothesized the results indicated that the children in the treatment group (and their families) had better outcomes than the control group. (Derosier, Swick, Davis, Mcmillen & Matthews, 2011)

When working in early intervention you tend to see tons of children, some typical and others not. How do we distinguish these students? Each child is different and the support required for them varies. There are a series of tests that can be administered for your child if you have concerns and anyone can recommend you for testing or an evaluation. The earlier the better.

A similar study, which sought to show training parents in behavior management methods as more useful than simply educating them about autism performed by Bearss, K., Johnson, C., Smith, T., Lecavalier, L., Swiezy, N., Aman, M., … Scahill, L. (2015), showed a higher rate of improvement in those whose parents attended the training; however, improvements failed to yield results that could be determined to be statistically significant. Through the inclusion of only children who were enrolled in school, English speaking, and predominantly male, it leaves room for further investigation. At 24 weeks the behaviors decreased, as reported by parents, 47.7%

The best treatment for children with Down syndrome or other disabilities is early intervention. Early intervention concept considered a methodical therapy which supports exercises and communication skills of children with down syndrome. In addition, there are many different types of early intervention which contribute to the development of the child's abilities: physical therapy, speech, and language therapy, and occupational therapy. It should start any time after birth usually this therapy continues until the three years.The earlier early intervention is the best, however, any person who has a child with Down syndrome can start to treat him anytime.

Parental education and involvement is important with nearly any situation. The involvement becomes even more critical when you consider the increasing rate at which children are being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders and the lack of funding and available services for these families and children. While some families may have access to treatments and the funds to pay for them studies are showing that it is more beneficial long term for the parents to be involved and continue the work in the home. It is also important to consider that it is the parents who know the child best and can often notice changes and make changes that allow the child to be more successful in the goals they are working toward. This paper will analyze current research in parental involvement in the area of treatments for autism spectrum disorders.

This paper will review five studies concerning the behavior and development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. The studies investigate how autism effects communication, socialization, cognitive development, and a number of other areas. Researchers use many different types of scales to measure and compare the difference between children with ASD and typically developing children.

Facing a difficult challenge for caregivers of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) isn 't easy, yet it 's hard due to the fact of deciding on the proper treatment plan for the child. Programs emphasizing usage of structured settings, tight stimulus control, and adult-directed instruction are labeled as current evidence that supports the early educational interventions which is based on the developmental and applied behavioral-analytic principles leading to the models that focus on opportunities of naturalistic delivery of learning within child-led routines. Nevertheless, calibration with intervention gains of treatment approaches from substantial to modest and resulting in treatment approaches to be variable. Limitation is

‘Preventative health’ is big time. Efforts to reduce smoking rates, to decrease breast cancer, or to prevent AIDS/HIV are widely supported. Prevention is an area where scientists, clinicians, and policymakers are in strong agreement: interventions improve health and save society billions of dollars.