By Aarti Nair
Early childhood development is a period of rapid physical, social and cognitive growth and changes that begins before birth extends into early childhood. While early childhood is not well defined, some sources assert that early years begin in-utero and last until 3-4 years.
Many infants born with high-risk (babies who experience complications at birth) lag in their development potential. Infants who receive early intervention demonstrate improved neurodevelopmental outcomes. The early years of infants are crucial as brain development takes place at a fast pace. With care, nurture and stimulation brain cells develop to inherent potential Enabling parents to provide required stimulation and care is the key strategy for improving outcomes for high-risk infants.
Brain development does not simply unfold with neurological maturation. Neurological development is shaped positively or negatively by interactions with people and environment. Understanding these interactions is the key to improving children’s development outcomes. Research has proved, period of birth to 4 years is critical for all children. This is especially true for children with delays in development.
Child outcomes are directly related to the quality of services. As the health of the child improves it leads to overall improvement in the life of the family. Providing parents with necessary resources to engage and tend to their children is an essential strategy for enhancing their results. A low-cost family-centered screening and intervention programme to support wellness of children and families is part of Latika’s Early Intervention services. Latika believes in empowering families by providing high-quality services, information and training. Parents are trained in a supportive environment using a structured learning program.
The concept is that Early Intervention not only improves but also sustains improved outcomes for families. In spite of the specialisation of neonatal follow-up programmes to identify high-risk infants with developmental delays, a large proportion of potentially eligible infants are not referred to early intervention. Research suggests, it takes 300-350 repetitions to build a movement pathway and way longer to retrain, nearly 3500 repetitions to unlearn and relearn. Screening and monitoring are valuable during infancy.
Screening and monitoring babies has a direct correlation with optimising children at risk of developmental delays. There is no substitute for lost time.
(Aarti Nair is Director, Services, at Latika)
