The risk factors for young people with intellectual disabilities developing a mental health disorder are higher than those found in the general population, yet training is very rarely available to frontline staff. A recent study in the United Kingdom cited prevalence rates of mental ill health among adults with intellectual disabilities ranging…

"Part C Updates" is a compilation of information on various aspects of the Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities (Part C) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This is the eleventh volume in a series of compilations, which included two editions of Part H Updates, the former name of the…

This practice guide includes a description of the development and use of a universal checklist for identifying infants and toddlers that may be eligible for early intervention. The checklist was specifically developed to facilitate and streamline the identification of potentially eligible children without the need to administer screening or…

During the past several years, one of the most frequently addressed topics at conferences and in professional journals is responsiveness to intervention (RTI). This is because it is viewed by many as a new way to think about both early intervention and disability identification. Despite its relative newness, a subset of RTI proponents contend…

Autism awareness is spreading like wildfire. Diagnoses have increased at an astounding rate. The statistic most often quoted is that 1 child in 150 has autism. As if the high rate of autism diagnoses were not worrisome enough, many doctors are not properly trained, or kept up to date, on how to detect autism at the earliest possible age. In many…

The awareness and knowledge of developmental milestones among health practitioners need to be enhanced to better enable early identification and intervention with children who have delays in development, intellectual deficit, and developmental disabilities and are residents in low-and middle-income countries. To meet this end, a simple one-page…

A survey interviewed parents of 77 children with severe to profound hearing loss while attending an educational program at an Illinois state residential school. The children had lower ages of identification than those reported in national studies and in an early study in Illinois. Delays in early intervention are discussed. (Contains references.)…

Children with unilateral hearing loss (UHL) are at risk for academic, speech and language and social-emotional difficulties. To date, most of the evidence documented in the literature has been obtained from school-age children, most of whom were diagnosed with UHL after enrollment in school. Following the widespread institution of universal…

Attention to growth may net more accurate screening results than have been apparent in the long history of early identification research. Instead of relying solely on measures administered at one time point, including a measure of children's growth or responsiveness may add an important dimension to the screening equation and provide a clearer…

Infant hearing screening is emerging rapidly as a silent global revolution for the early detection of children with congenital or early onset hearing loss to ensure timely enrollment in family-oriented intervention programs for the development of spoken language. This article examines the overriding and interrelated scientific, ethical and…

As part of the Combating Autism Act of 2006, the members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) are required to develop an annual "Summary of Advances" to describe each year's top advances in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) research. These advances represent significant progress in the early diagnosis of ASD, understanding the…

Attempts to better identify the at-risk children with reading disabilities to aid in early intervention before they encounter the years of reading failure usually associated with a formal diagnosis of reading disabilities. Tries to develop a small set of phonological, letter, and memory tasks that would reliably identify children likely to develop…

This article discusses six criteria for justifying universal infant hearing screening, including: significant consequences must result when the disorder is not detected, programs must be available, accessible, and cost-effective, and birth-admission screening must result in an improved outcome. It concludes that universal detection of infant…

Objective: To investigate parents' experiences of surveillance for early talking difficulties. Design: Qualitative study nested within a randomised controlled trial. Setting: Interviews with the parents of 20 children identified as having early difficulties. Results: Most parents were in favour of surveillance of children's language. Parents do…

There is little research into emergency presentations in child and adolescent mental health. The purpose of this study was to obtain an overview of number and types of presentations to a inner London child and adolescent mental health emergency service and to determine immediate and longer-term service demands. All available data on 107…