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Article #8
Can a disability or impairment prevent from occurring? Can government save money from being drained by expensive services for individuals with disabilities? Is it possible to lower incidence and numbers of occurrence of disability among newborn? Yes to all these questions, How? The answer is Early Intervention Services. That was the topic for the Symposium that was done this Saturday at Prince Suliman Research Center for Disabilities.
What do we mean by Early Intervention Services. There are many and different kinds of services that should be available in any society for special need population. There are health, educational, social services that are established for this sector of the society. The services begin upon the discovery of such incidence of impairments and disabilities.
However, prevention’s services for disabilities are one of the most important services that play such important role in any society, yet these services are mostly neglected. Early Intervention Services need to be planned well to have necessary parts to make it comprehensive and effective. These services are delivered in to different stages and require collaboration and cooperation from different government and non government agencies that serves families and young children from the health, social and educational services.
The earliest Early Intervention Service having family genetic counseling services for couples who are getting married to know if there are hereditary diseases that causes sensory, physical, neurological impairments which lead to a disability. Such services is very important because it can lower the number of individuals born with such diseases, especially in a society such as ours, where marriages between cousin is the norm. Doctors are seeing families who have five, six, and seven children all born with either visual or hearing impairments. Parents can be screened if they are carriers for Phenylketonuria (PKU) on genes. This gene causes inability to convert certain amino acids, which causes abnormal brain development and later severe mental retardation. However, no services to offer counseling to these families about such problems.
The second Early Intervention Service is provided to pregnant women which includes screening and tests for certain birth defects and physical malformations in the fetus during pregnancy that leads to health impairments. Some of these tests are Amniocentesis, which can detect Spina Bifida (a condition in which the spinal cords does not close properly. Chronic Villus Sampling (CVS) test can detect chromosomal abnormalities, and Sonography allows detection of malformation of the unborn fetus.
Information Dissemination for pregnancy care to mothers is extremely important to prevent exposures to maternal infections such as Rubella (German measles) which can cause mental retardation, Microcephalus, blindness, and hearing loss to the fetus. Other information such bad inadequate prenatal care, Alcohol consumption’s, and Smoking can cause infants to have low birth weight which in turn can contributes to the number of infants born with disabilities. Physical trauma, maternal exposures to toxic substance or X-rays, for example, may causes brain damage to the fetus.
Teenager mothers (less than twenty years old) are most likely than older mothers give birth to premature low birthright infants, and these babies are high risk for a variety of psychological and physical problems when they reach school age.
Screening infants after birth is very important services for prevention of disabilities. For example, Phenylketonuria (PKU) can be tested before infants leave the hospital that is done in the Developed World Countries, and thus dietary intervention can be done to these infants born with such conditions. Screening for Microcephalus (a condition characterized by small head, or Hydrocephalus (increased fluid in the head) which leads to mental retardation and cognitive delays to children. Retardation depends on how early was the diagnosis and treatment.
Premature birth, hypoxia (lack of sufficient oxygen), high fever, infections, hemorrhaging may cause harm following birth. Any problems during labor can cause oxygen deprivation or cerebral bleeding which cause retardation, developmental disabilities, Cerebral Palsy (a condition that causes paralysis, and motor dysfunctioning). Immunization against preventable childhood diseases could lower the number of children who acquire disabilities. Otitis media an infection in the middle ear, a primary childhood disease, is not easy to detect in infancy and can result in hearing loss to children.
Education for parenting and child management, including family life education in the schools is an obvious need in society. Many physical disabilities which was caused by neglect or injuries can be prevented if parents were educated about child care and safety such as simply having child’s car-seats and wearing car seat’s belts. Healthcare to pregnant mothers is necessary to prevent so many problems.
The next part of Early Intervention Services is actual reach-out programs for parents of at risk children and to children who have impairments. These programs are very essential to provide the necessary stimulation for the children’s proper growth, development and learning. These programs help parents as well to cope with their children'’ difficulties and can monitor the development to the child’s conditions
The last stage is to provide direct services to preschool children age 3-5 years. These services can be home-based, center-based or a combination of both programs. Thus having a comprehensive Early Intervention Services programs, group of conditions that carries to disabilities can be dealt with. Such services decrease numbers of disabilities incidence and allow children to be integrated in the regular education and cut a lot of expenditures for separate facilities and services that my continue through out adulthood.
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