About Early Intervention (EI)
What is EI?
Early Intervention is a program with therapists and specialists who support a child’s development. The first few years of a child’s life are critical in achieving developmental milestones. Therapists work with families and their children at home, daycare, and out in the community.
Once a child receives a referral, a team of specialists evaluate the child’s development in five areas to determine if a delay in any area is present. The following five areas of development are evaluated: communication, adaptive, personal-social, motor, and cognitive.
EI Eligibility
Cost of EI
Early Intervention services are provided at no cost to families since these services are mandated by federal and state law.
Private insurances will not be billed for services.
5 Areas of Development
The following areas of development are use to determine if a child presents with a delay and is eligible for Early Intervention services.
Communication
Evaluates a child’s receptive communication and ability to discriminate, recognize, and understand words/sounds. This area also assesses a child’s expressive communication and ability to use sounds, words, or gestures to relay information.
Personal-Social
Evaluates a child’s ability to interact with peers and adults. This area also assesses a child’s development of self-awareness, personal knowledge, self-worth/pride, moral development, sensitivity to others’ needs/feelings, and coping skills.
Adaptive
Evaluates a child’s ability to complete daily routine tasks with increasing autonomy (i.e., eating, dressing, toileting). This area also assesses a child’s ability to be responsible for simple chores.
Motor
Evaluates a child’s development of large muscle skills (i.e., walking, running, jumping, throwing). This area also assesses a child’s fine muscle skills (i.e., picking up objects, coloring). Also evaluated are a child’s fine motor and perceptual skills (i.e., stacking blocks, putting rings on a peg, drawing/writing).
Cognitive
Evaluates a child’s ability to attend visually and auditorily for various lengths of time. This area also assesses critical thinking ability to conceptualize and discriminate object features and relationships (i.e., comparing color, shape, and size).
