Research demonstrates that children’s healthy development is essential to school readiness, academic success, and overall well-being. Services that support young children’s healthy development can reduce the prevalence of developmental and behavioral disorders that have high costs and long-term consequences for health, education, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems. Additionally, a growing body of evidence suggests that prevention and early intervention are substantially less costly than life-long special education and treatment.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement, Identifying Infants and Young Children with Developmental Disorders in the Medical Home: An Algorithm for Developmental Surveillance and Screening, (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/1/405) recommends that developmental surveillance be performed at every preventive visit and that a screening tool should be administered at 9-, 18-, and 24- or 30-month visits and for those children whose surveillance yields concerns about delayed or disordered development. These developments have encouraged the spread of primary care screening tools and increased identification of children in the pediatric primary care settings who are in need of further assessment and services to address developmental delays. As a result, forging linkages between primary health and care providers and other child and family service providers is critical to assuring that young children and their families receive needed services.
This section provides an overview of relevant findings from the science of early childhood development. It includes links to a comprehensive on-line bibliography as well as to a number of reports that draw on current research to develop strategies for state and local programs and policies. It makes the case for involvement of providers, policymakers and families.
Sources include:
Johnson K and Rosenthal J, Improving Care Coordination, Case Management, and Linkages to Service for Young Children: Opportunities for States. (Portland, ME: The National Academy for State Health Policy, April 2009).
Institute of Medicine, Reducing Risks for Mental Disorders: Frontiers for preventive intervention research (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1994); Carnegie Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children. Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of our Youngest Children” (New York, NY: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1994).
