The Changing Profile of Childhood Disability
ABSTRACT
The political climate in which to develop a nationally cohesive programme of Early Childhood Intervention is ripe. Early Childhood Intervention is one of the four major platforms of the recently launched Government strategy on special educational needs, Removing Barriers to Achievement (DfES, 2004b). This strategy articulates a major imperative to translate aspirations into reality. Yet high quality service delivery can be achieved only through skilled, reflective practitioners in the context of a society that truly recognises the changing pattern of childhood disability.

The lessons learnt internationally about Early Childhood Intervention (Guralnick, 2005) also have much to teach us about service development and delivery to our most vulnerable children and their families. At the heart of this process must be the voice of the family – guiding, informing, sharing, engaging. The key to successful Early Childhood Intervention is responsivity – to society, to its families, but, most of all, to its children.