Early Intervention Essay

Early identification of speech, language or communication delay is important for a child or young persons’ well-being. All practitioners have a responsibility to identify children’s needs and intervene with appropriate support as early as possible, to help children achieve the goals of ‘Every Child Matters’ and progress towards the Early Learning Goals. The importance of early language and communication skills for children’s later achievements is now well documented and the need to provide support for children at this early stage is so that they can achieve their full potential. This means recognising a child’s difficulty quickly:

Early intervention, at its core, is “services provided to infants and toddlers who are at risk for, or showing signs of developmental delays” (Coleman, 1993). The intervention is individualized for each child and family and their specific needs. Thus, when the service providers work with the families, they can “create optimal environments for language learning” (Moeller, et. al., 2013). Research shows that language of routines and joint attention are two successful evidence based practices families and interventionist can use with children who are d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Joint attention relates to “the eliciting and directing of another person’s attention to an object for mutual engagement with the object,” (Tasker, Nowakowski, & Schmidt, 2010) while language of routines emphases the idea that “when a child is familiar with routines, the interventionist can focus on scaffolding new and more complex learning” and language (Vygotsky as cited in Jennings, Hanline & Woods, 2012). By utilizing both methods of interventions in a child’s natural environment, their language will flourish.

4.1 Analyse the importance of early identification of speech, language and communication delays and disorders and the potential risks of late recognition. It is essential that speech, language and communication delays and disorders are noticed early so the relevant interventions can be used to support the child or young person. Answer the questions below.

The majority of deaf students are born to hearing parents. Since 2002, new born hearing screening has been mandated in Ontario. This is usually done within the first four months of being born. If a child does have a hearing loss, immediate steps are taken to ensure the baby is given language. This reduces the chances of language delay and therefore, literacy delay when the child begins school. Before then, as in the time of Deafening, when Grania loses her hearing, there were no such mandates. Unfortunately, a child may have been be a toddler (or older) by the time their hearing loss was discovered.

The study included children who received a diagnosis of a congenital or early-onset (before 6 months) permanent hearing loss that was not medically treatable (Durieux-Smith et al., 2008). Data was collected from the groups of children who were identified with permanent hearing loss through a targeted high-risk screening program, a universal newborn hearing-screening program, or through a medical referral either with risk factors or without factors. Data on the onset of permanent hearing loss, route to referral, etiology, age at diagnosis, and amplification fitting were all obtained from their medical charts to determine the primary outcomes of language abilities with early identification. Results from the study showed children screened at infancy were diagnosed earlier than those referred with risk factors (Durieux-Smith et al., 2008). Children with risk factors, in turn, were diagnosed earlier than referred without risk factors. Although, the age of diagnosis of referred children was seen to improve over time, it remained significantly higher than children receiving screenings. However, this trend of earlier diagnosis may reflect greater awareness of hearing loss. Results from this study indicate UNHS leads therefore earlier diagnosis and to earlier amplification, which then leads to earlier auditory stimulation (Durieux-Smith et al.,

The Impact of Early Intervention on Speech and Lexical Development for Toddlers with Cleft Palate: A Retrospective Look at Outcome, Mary Hardin-Jones & Kathy L. Chapman, Language, Speech, And Hearing Services in Schools, 2008

Deaf infants aren’t smoothed by environmental sounds like comfort from parents, instead they respond to nonvocal parental behaviors. This can cause the parent to experience distress and feelings of rejection causing them to seek help due to the lack of auditory responsiveness. For deaf children born to Deaf parents, deafness is the norm so their experience may be completely different than one being born to an unsuspecting parent. Deaf parents communicate easily using visual language and will socialize their children based on their knowledge and personal experiences. They are aware of opportunities and obstacles and have access to Deaf culture because deafness is the norm. For some deaf parents this can be a cause for celebration or they can

In 1993, the average age for identification of a hearing impairment in the United States was approximately three years old (NIH, 1993). Consequently, the first three years of a child’s life are most important for speech and language development and, therefore, are crucial years for detecting hearing loss. Without an ability to hear, children lack proper development of speech and language. Therefore, a lack of efficacy in previous infant hearing screening protocols fueled innovation of universal newborn hearing screenings. These universal hearing screening methods were the first to address means of screening all infants born in hospitals. This paper will discuss: (a) limitations of previous protocols which paved a path for new protocols and

In 1993, the average age for identification of a hearing impairment in the United States was approximately 3 years old (NIH, 1993). Consequently, the first three years of a child’s life are most important for speech and language development, and therefore, crucial years for detecting hearing impairments. Without the ability to hear, children will not develop speech or language skills. Therefore, a lack of efficacy in previous protocols fueled the innovation of “universal newborn screening.”

Hearing screenings are just as important as a routine doctor’s check-up. The younger generation, such as college students, may not pay much attention to their hearing. Universities all over the country have made a point to provide hearing services to some of their students. Taylor & Emanuel’s article, Assessment of the Efficacy of a Hearing Screening Program for College Students, studies the effectiveness of a hearing screening program and proposes improvements that can be made to university hearing screening programs. This article discusses the importance of sensitivity and specificity when determining the effectiveness of a screening program. There were plenty of outside sources within this article, but a lot of these studies had insufficient

I completely agree with you that early intervention is vital to helping children with developmental issues. You mentioned that early intervention can help children develop skills and I can agree with that also. In my research I learned that skills do not develop on a strict timetable and unfortunately in developmental disabilities or mental challenges these are not necessarily things the child can outgrow but they can make progress through intervention including early education. Furthermore, these skills areas can be cognitive, social and emotional skills, speech and language skills, and fine and gross motor skills in nature (Morin).

Pre-lingual Hard of Hearing individuals are people who acquired hearing loss before they learned a spoken language, which most often is before age five (Parker 1). It can occur adventitiously, from illness, or due to an accident (Parker 1). Language acquisition is most often incomplete and delayed, and later on the individual will most likely have trouble with reading and writing (Parker 1). Individuals who identify with this group, are connected to this division because of the early age of onset, manner in which they grew up and how they were treated, and language acquisition. They will connect through common experience growing up as a child with hearing loss. Ways in which this group interacts within the hard of hearing community include but are not limited to: residential schools, summer camps, community-oriented organized activities, and ASL classes all geared towards individuals who are hard of hearing. One program for children who are hard of hearing is

Hearing Loss is characterized as the diminished or inability to process sound-related data. An imperfection at hearing level in a living organism can prompt to hearing loss. Speech is the essential method of correspondence between people. Thus the capacity to hear and convey makes the ear most imperative for an individual’s development. Hence hearing and communicating plays an important role in an intellectual’s growth. The non-syndromic hearing loss is not related with any signs or side effects as syndromic hearing loss which is a dangerous condition. An online survey was done for qualitative and quantitative data analysis. There are more than 4000 new born babies with a hearing malfunction every year out of which the greater part has an or

Should the language competence of children from low-SES backgrounds be considered deficient or different? Evaluate the evidence for and against each claim.

It is a clear and worthy investment. The question lies in which preschool program is the most effective. Previous reviews of programs have focused on if they contributed to later success, but a few of them compared the programs on their effectiveness. A number of programs showed positive results continuing to the end of kindergarten and beyond, signifying that the preschool involvement had impacts aside from early exposure to academic content. (Johns Hopkins University, 37). Also, several programs had effects on oral language skills, which are emphasized in most preschools.