Your child and family may receive early intervention services if:

• You live in Colorado
• Your child is under three years of age
• Your child meets one of the following two criteria:
  1. Your Child has a Developmental Delay: Your child may be determined eligible for Early Intervention services because he or she has a significant level of delay in one or more of the following areas of development:
  • Cognitive Development including thinking, learning, and developing play skills
  • Physical or Motor Development including moving, seeing and hearing
  • Language or Communication development including understanding and using sounds, gestures, and words
  • Social and Emotional development including responding to and developing relationships with other people
  • Adaptive Development including daily activities like feeding and dressing

  2. Your child has a Diagnosis that may result in a Developmental Disability:

  Your child may be determined eligible because he or she has been diagnosed with a medical condition that has a high probability of resulting in a significant developmental delay or disability. 

You may receive support to promote your child’s development, within your family activities and community life. Colorado’s Early Intervention system supports children from birth through two years of age who have special developmental needs. The Early Intervention Colorado program “connects” families with early intervention services, such as occupational, speech or physical therapy, and developmental intervention to help infants and toddlers grow and develop. Early intervention also helps the child’s family in this process.

Early intervention is a voluntary program and does not discriminate based on race, culture, religion, income level, or disability.

Providing developmental supports and services early on can improve a child’s ability to develop, learn, and overcome some of the obstacles presented by a delay or diagnosed disability. Early Intervention may help to prevent or decrease the need for ongoing developmental assistance.

The goal of Early Intervention in Colorado is to “open a window of opportunity” for families to help their children with special needs develop to their full potential.

You will have a Service Coordinator to work with your family, your local school district and contracted professionals to develop a plan to meet your child’s identified needs.  This team of people will work with you throughout the time that your child is in need of Early Intervention services or until your child’s third birthday.  Your child’s team will be available to help you make adjustments to services as necessary.  This team will also be available to help you plan a transition from Early Intervention services to preschool at age three.

If you would like to research the scope of Early Intervention services in Colorado further we strongly encourage you to visit the Early Intervention Colorado website at www.eicolorado.org