What is Early Intervention?

The term used to describe the services and supports that are available to babies and young children with developmental delays and disabilities and their families.  It may include speech therapy, physical therapy, and other types of services based on the needs of the child and family. It can have a significant impact on a child’s ability to learn new skills and overcome challenges and can increase success in school and life.

How will a child benefit from it?

Our early intervention program is aimed at enhancing the child’s skills across several areas and reducing undesirable behavior. Several of our children have been able to maximize their potential and minimize their difficulties. Many of them have been integrated in regular schools and are functioning perfectly well.

As a rule we recommend a minimum of one year and a maximum of three years of intervention. Our ‘gold standard’ for moving children out of Smiles Early Intervention program is the achievement of age appropriate skills across all domains. It has been our experience that children who join the program early (by three years) are most likely to achieve the ‘gold standard’ within a year or two, while those who join the program later take a longer time or don’t quite make it. Children who move out of the regular program but are in need of additional help are provided with individual therapy.

Steps Taken for Improvement

Smiles Child Development Centre is not a special school. It is an early intervention centre for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

• Smiles Child Development Centre provides intervention programs in which children with developmental disorders, particularly those with autism spectrum disorders are trained according to their individual needs, by Occupational Therapists, Speech-Language Therapists, Developmental Psychologists and Educators. 
• Further, by providing training in small groups, children are facilitated to interact with peers and provided the much needed support to function in peer groups. Our goal is to enable as many children as possible to be integrated in a regular school set up, subsequent to Early Intervention (EI).
• Good family participation as well as consistent follow-up at home are critical aspects of the intervention process.

What after Smiles Early Intervention Program?

We do not recommend mainstreaming of a child unless and until she/he is ready and his or her prerequisite learning skills are in place, that is, the child should be able to sit in a place, attend to and comply with simple instructions. Usually this happens within the first year at Smiles Child Development Centre after which we strongly recommend part time/full time admission into a supportive regular school. Many children attend regular school in the morning and Smiles Child Development Centre in the afternoon, prior to moving out of Smiles Child Development Centre, completely.