Early Intervention Program
Age range: birth - 3 years (and their families)
Type of setting(s): natural environments including homes,
day care centers, community settings, play groups, nursery schools, babysitters'
homes
Geographic Location(s): Camden County, New Jersey
Accreditation: CARF... The Rehabilitation Accreditation
Commission - Employment and Community Services Standards
Bancroft's Early Intervention Program (EIP) offers therapeutic and educational services that help infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities achieve developmental milestones.
The Early Intervention Program provides early learning and therapeutic services to infants and toddlers who show delays in reaching developmental milestones, or who have a medical diagnosis designated as putting them at risk for delays. EIP services are provided in a child's natural environment: where the child lives, learns and plays, and spends time on a daily basis. This includes other community settings in which children without disabilities participate. Services are designed to fit into a family's lifestyle, routine and schedule.
Program staff members work closely with parents to develop individualized family service plans (IFSP), specifically geared to the individual child and his/her family's needs and schedules. Staff and family members form a partnership to maximize the child's development. Professional staff includes early childhood/special education teachers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech/language pathologists, social workers, behavior analysts and child development associates. Program staff members provide education, professional advice and a caring, listening ear for parents who are just discovering they have a child with disabilities.
Services are individualized based on each child's needs and may include every discipline available, or just one or two. Hours of service vary based on need, from one to 40 hours per week. EIP also offers counseling for families, parent training and mentoring, support groups, sibling support groups, transitional supports to public school settings; referrals and registration for services such as, Medicaid, Kids First, housing, rent and food assistance, among others.
If your child is diagnosed with autism...
For children who have a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder, the EIP
offers programs with Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) as the theoretical
foundation and main methodology. In the most basic format, ABA is defined
as an analysis of the function of behaviors, deconstructing tasks to their
smallest components, and analyzing forms and patterns of responses. Foundational
skill building is stressed along with cognition, language, imitation, play,
categorization, concepts, abstractions and social skills development.
Functional communication is stressed for all children, and may include: motor imitation, sound imitation, word production, sign language or an icon symbolic picture system.
A child's progress is measured through observation, anecdotal records and empirical data. Each child has a data program book, which contains all ABA programs utilized, introduction dates, notes, data and mastery dates. Books are available for parent review at any time.
