Early intervention is many things

Early intervention is periodic formal testing of your child, telling you whether or not your child is sufficiently developmentally delayed to qualify for service.

Early intervention is periodic formal testing of your child, telling you whether or not your parenting has been adequate.

Early intervention is seeing your child qualify for services, then learn to walk, then actually start early intervention and have early intervention take credit for teaching him how to walk.

Early intervention is weekly visits to your home where a specialist works with your child on whatever skills you want them to focus on. The specialist answers your questions, offers suggestions, explains their methods, and includes you as a parent in the planning and the activities.

Early intervention is weekly visits to your home where a specialist works with your child on whatever skills the specialist wants to focus on. The specialist undermines your authority in the home and disrupts the nature of your home as a safe space.

Early intervention is weekly written notes evaluating your child, creating an enormous set of paper records that cannot possibly help your child. Early intervention is also being handed written notices telling you your legal rights over and over and over again, as if they can’t believe that you’re honestly not going to exercise your rights to escape from early intervention.

Early intervention is a playgroup with structured activities that you have to fight to get your child into for six months, while they keep promising that admission is right around the corner. Early intervention is where your toddler with excellent motor skills is placed in a group with barely crawling infants. Early intervention is where healthy snacks are fruit punch, cookies, and Froot Loops, where a rule against fruit means serving grapes or jam-filled cookies, where a rule against bare feet means that only some of the kids have bare feet, and where the teaching assistants barely seem to have a clue how to interact with a child. Early intervention is where the group’s daily schedule is written out, posted on the wall, and completely ignored. Early intervention is where the changing table is broken, the carpets aren’t cleaned correctly, and your wallet is stolen. Early intervention is continually dashed expectations and broken promises.

Some days, early intervention is a teacher misjudging your child’s emotional state, refusing to respect your knowledge about your child, and silently disregarding your instructions.

Some days, early intervention is a teacher telling you that you’re the one holding your child back. What a nasty thing to tell a parent, no matter whether it’s true.