Family-Centered Early Interventions for Pre-School Children With Developmental Disabilities: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Early intervention is very important for young and at-risk children with developmental disabilities. A major goal of early intervention is to reduce the likelihood of disabilities or causes of delays of the very young children. The presence of a disabled child often has a profound effect on the structure of his/her family. The entire family often appears to need intervention as well as the disbled child. As a result, family-centered early intervention has become a critical type of service delivery. Many interventions for these children have been proposed and studid, but there is currently on consensus regarding which interventions are most effective. Objective: To systematically review evidences regarding family-centered early interventions for childern aged 6 years or younger with disabilities. Methods: The publication including NIH, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Psyclnfo, and ERIC databases from 1985 to 2013 using the terms children with disabilities, intervention/early ntervention, and family have been searched. Using data analysis software program, XSight, has been employed to assess each study against predetermined include/exclusion criteria. Then, the data has been extract regarding the participant and intervention characteristics, methodology, and outcomes and assigned overall quality and strength-of-evidence ratings on the basis of predetermined criteria. Results: With the total of twenty studies included as an assumption that the development needs of preschool children with developmental disabilities can be met by enhancing the families' effectiveness of early intervention in caring for and managing these children, evidence supports the home visiting and professinals consultation program as the most effectiveness of all family-centered early interventions. Conclusions: Although children with developmental disabilities or at-risk are currently receive treatments and cares during many years in life. The family- centered early interventions are probably the most important programs as these may reduce the likelihood of disabilities at the very young ages.