Early screening and early intervention is the key to offering quality care
Date :
Thursday, September 17 2009
Source:
Autourina Mains
Many have heard the widely advertised Wyoming’s “One before two” campaign. One before two is a Wyoming initiative promoting developmental screenings for early identification of delays and disabilities among children birth-5. Wyoming Developmental Preschools are mandated by law to conduct free screenings and they offer them in a variety of settings, including; child care centers, federally funded preschools, developmental preschools, and private preschools.
Screening babies as soon as possible is best practice because babies’ brain begins developing in utero and continues throughout life. Babies use their senses to grow and develop, thus, children birth-8 are concrete learners (Needing concrete experiences in order to grow and develop. Concrete experiences include activities that stimulate the child’s sense of touch, smell, taste, hear, and vision). All developmental domains of; speech, language, motor, vision, and cognitive are interrelated. When a child has delay in one domain, the delay will affect growth and development in other domains. For instance when a baby has delays in speech, it is very possible that the child will have delays in small motor (using his hands and fingers) or large motor (crawl, walk, and run) development as well.
Early screenings lead to early identification of delays and early initialization of interventive services. The core of quality care is to help the child develop to his/her highest potential and to improve the baby’s and the family’s quality of life. Early screenings inform the parents and the providers about child’s developmental stage so that they can help their child move up to the next developmental stage. The earlier discovery of the delay or the disability the more effective is the interventive services. Why wait till the child is in school before offering the child speech/language services? If the baby is screened and found to have speech delay and receives services early on, his/her chances of succeeding in school is higher.
In an effort to detect delays and disabilities, babies are screened at birth in the hospital. The test is called PKU (the heel prick). It tests babies for serious disorders and is usually performed when your baby is 24-48 hours old. The test is done to find out if the baby has a disease or condition for which early treatment can prevent death, mental retardation, or physical disability. Though each child develops at his/her own pace, having an idea of developmental stages can help the adult remain alert to possible delays. Babies develop so quickly and it is amazing to learn that much of the development begins in utero. For instance in utero;
- If the unborn babies are deprived of normal language-based interaction, babies are later unable to master language. (so read to your unborn babyJ)
- Fine and gross motor movements of the unborn develop as networks in the brain
- The vestibular system (located in the inner ear and responsible for balance) begins developing at about 6 weeks in utero. The vestibular system is somehow responsible for why babies lie head down in utero.
- Unborn babies respond to music in utero.
After birth using their senses of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and vestibular babies develop at a fast pace for instance by the age of 3 months:
- Babies begin to recognize familiar faces from a distance (vision)
- Raise their head and chest when lying on their tummy (Vestibular, motor, muscle tone)
- Develop a social smile (social/emotional)
- Begin to babble (speech/language and cognitive)
- Infants begin crawling by the age of 6 months
Knowing some of these developmental milestones, the adult can be watchful if the baby is not:
- Does not pay attention to new faces (possibly due to vision difficulty)
- Does not smile at people (social/emotional, muscle tone, vision)
- Does not babble (Possible speech/motor delay)
- Is not able to support head and chest (possible vestibular/muscle delay)
- Is not able to crawl (crawling is important to activate both hemispheres of brain so if a baby is not crawling by 12 months, screening is vital to ensure there are no delays)
Taking the baby to the developmental center in your area for screening every 6 months is a proactive step. If you have a child care center, contacting the child development centers and asking them to schedule screening for the children in your care annually is another free service the developmental centers offer to their communities. Always be sure to inform parents in advance and obtain parental permission prior to screenings.
Should the infant need services for a detected disability, the Developmental Centers with the help of the parents will write an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) that is appropriate for the family as a whole. Parents should take an active role in deciding what is best for the child and their family and should include the care providers in the IFSP. No one knows your child like you do!