Early childhood intervention can work wonders

Chasey Reed-Boston, director (right), and Candice Trotter, assistant director, of Early Childhood Intervention at Bay Area Rehabilitation Center.

“One of the challenges we see at times is alignment of pediatricians with the parents’ sense of urgency that something may be wrong with their young child. There is so much research that indicates that when mom says something is wrong with that baby, 70 percent of the time she is right.

“Some pediatricians will toe the line that it will get better, let’s wait and see what it looks like a bit later. But with early intervention, the earlier you can address the problem, the more valuable it is for the child.”

“The ultimate goal is to enhance the child’s functioning in their everyday environment. So we provide services in the home, daycare setting or wherever else they would typically be with other children that are developing.

“That’s important because what the service providers are working on with that child, they in turn demonstrate everything to the child’s parents and the child’s teacher. That way, as the child is functioning in their normal life, little strategies can be imbedded into different activities so that it stays as natural as possible.”

— Chasey Reed-Boston and Candice Trotter