The Early Childhood Intervention Program started in the United States of America in 1912 when the Congress established the Children’s Bureau, which was collecting information about children with mental disorders and handicapped children from institutional care. Nowadays, the government of every state runs this program.

The Early Childhood Intervention is a special governmental program that is aimed to help infants and children in the age until three years old who have or might have serious mental disorders. Besides, the program helps parents overcome the difficult period of the first three years of a child’s life. The program offers the following types of services:

•    “assessment and planning, including the development of an Individualized Family

Service Plan (IFSP);

•    audiological services;
•    vision services;
•    occupational and physical therapy;
•    speech and language therapy;
•    special instruction services;
•    medical and nursing services;
•    psychological and social work services
•    health services necessary for the child to benefit from other early intervention services;
•    family training, counseling, and home visits transportation to enable the child and family to receive early intervention services” (“Early Intervention Strategies,” n.d.)

Overall, the program is aimed at helping children develop correctly, including child’s mental and physical development. It means that children who are in this program learn to communicate with each other, learn to adapt to circumstances and conditions they are in, as well as develop their emotional and social abilities.

Psychologists, as well as doctors, have proved that the first three years of life are the most crucial in the development of a person. During this period of life, a child learns how to move, communicate with others, as well as experiences his or her own unique identity. However, depending on congenital, medical, emotional, environmental or genetic circumstances, some children cannot obtain such abilities. The program of the early childhood intervention is aimed at helping parents and relatives aid their child in development. Parents are provided with information about therapeutic and educational strategies that will be particularly useful for them. Besides, every family is provided with those strategies that are exactly suitable for them and their child. Families are also provided with a guide where parents can find all recommendations and here important advice. Moreover, a family has a team that consists of several specialists who are willing to help both a family and a child any time. Those specialists are:

•    “Speech and Language Therapist;
•    Occupational Therapist;
•    Physical Therapist;
•    Developmental Specialist;
•    Pediatric Registered Nurse;
•    Social Worker;
•    Psychologist” (Bruder, 2010, p. 350).

The peculiarity of the Early Childhood Intervention program is that every family can find help regardless of religion, race, sex, skin color, age, marital status of parents, country of origin, sexual orientation of parents, whether a child has serious problems with health or doctors only suspect that a child might have problems in the future. Besides, parents should not pay fees for this program.

Furthermore, the research has shown that the program is developmentally appropriate because it helps children who have some problems that might influence their development to become a part of society in the future. Moreover, it is proved by thousands of examples of children’s stories as well as statistics that have been provided by researchers. One of the mothers, whose child has been learning on this program, says that this program has greatly helped her son Ethan. Since early years, Ethan loved to jump; firstly, it seemed funny to parents and relatives, but then they thought that it might have been a sign of some disorder. Little boy did not like to play or to be tickled, he was eager to jump. This fact worried his mother, so she decided that something had to be done. That is why she called the Virginia’s early intervention services office and asked for a piece of advice. Specialists there gladly agreed to help Ethan and his mother, and they were learning according to the Part C of the IDEA program. Moreover, the mother of Ethan was not left alone with this problem – coordinators and service providers were trying to evaluate Ethan’s needs and make up a learning program for him. After some time, Ethan’s mother began to feel more secure, her hope that her son will become healthy soon has come back again (“A Mother’s Story,” 2010). However, this was only the first step, but this step meant a lot to this family as well as to other families in the United States of America. While analyzing this program, it can be seen that it has both weak and strong points. Advantages of this program include the following:

• The long lasting effect of the program;
• Specialists work not only with children but with parents and other relatives;
• The researchers have proved that on account of this program the government saves money because it is cheaper to give funds to such intervention program than to donate money for maintaining those children otherwise.

Still, the main disadvantage of the program is that sometimes it is impossible to develop a program for every child. Moreover, it also occurs that parents want their healthy children to develop faster, so they make them join this program.

Nevertheless, the Early Childhood Intervention program has had an important impact on the society as well as it has improved the quality of life for children and their families. Before the program has been launched, handicapped children or those who have mental disabilities have been considered as different and as those who do not have place in a society. The Early Childhood Intervention program has changed this attitude. Specialists who nowadays work in this program help others understand that children who have some disorders can live in a modern society the same way as every person who is healthy. Speaking about the usefulness of the program, it is worth recalling the story that has been mentioned above – the story about Ethan and his mother. Nowadays, Ethan is seven years old and he is taking the next step toward healthy life – he is participating in Part B program of the IDEA. His mother says that there is still a long way to go, but she still says that now there is an improvement in Ethan’s mental health. Little boy has fantastic sense of humor, and he is communicative, besides the boy has learned to joke. It is difficult to imagine that several years ago Ethan did not need anyone, he was jumping alone; nowadays he has friends, loves to play games with his peers. Coordinators state that Ethan is developing very fast and he has achieved a lot. Besides, Ethan and his problem made this family stronger as well as other families in all over the world (“A Mother’s Story,” 2010).

Nowadays, the Part C of the program is launched in every state in the United States of America, besides the program exists in Australia. Additionally, since 2011, new regulations of the program have been approved by the U.S. government.