Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 27, Issue 2, March 1998, Pages 238-245
Preventive Medicine

Regular Article
The Effectiveness of Early Intervention: Examining Risk Factors and Pathways to Enhanced Development,☆☆,

https://doi.org/10.1006/pmed.1998.0282Get rights and content
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Abstract

In this paper we examine the effectiveness of early intervention, especially vis-à-vis (a) child and family risk factors and (b) the pathways to enhanced child and family development. To address these issues we draw on findings from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) for low-birth-weight premature infants. The data we present reveal the considerable effectiveness of the IHDP intervention in enhancing several aspects of early and later child and family development. The findings also illustrate the importance of looking beyond intervention group differences to examine the extent to which early intervention effects are more pronounced for some children and families than others and to examine theprocessesunderlying intervention effects (eg, exactlyhowdo early interventions change children and families?). For example, both initial and longer-term IHDP intervention effects varied by both characteristics of the children and characteristics of their families. Our data also provide some insight into the processes by which intervention effects may have occurred. We conclude our consideration of these many complexities with suggestions for practice, social policy, and future research.

Keywords

early intervention
infancy
young children, low birth weight
risk
Infant Health and Development Program, social policy.

Cited by (0)

Support for the research presented in this paper was provided by the Family and Child Well-Being Research Network of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. The Infant Health and Development Program was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with additional support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.

☆☆

We thank Infant Health and Development Program site directors Patrick H. Casey, Michael W. Yogman, Charles R. Bauer, Keith G. Scott, Judith Bernbaum, Jon E. Tyson, Mark Swanson, Clifford J. Sells, Forrest C. Bennett, David T. Scott, and Marie McCormick. We also thank National Study Director Ruth T. Gross and her staff at Stanford University as well as Educational Director Craig T. Ramey and his staff at the University of North Carolina. Finally, we thank James Tonascia, Curtis L. Meinert, and their staff at the Infant Health and Development data coordinating center at Johns Hopkins University.

Gallagher, J, JRamey, C, T

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