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Gaps found in Part C early intervention criteria

Researchers have found large discrepancies between states in Part C early intervention eligibility criteria for children with developmental delays, according to study results.

Part C is the largest early intervention program in the United States for children aged 3 years or younger, serving approximately 2.8% of all US children in that age group.

“States need to look at the criteria they use to determine which infants and toddlers are eligible for early intervention,” researcher Steven A. Rosenberg, PhD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said in a press release. “They need to ask themselves why they have such broad criteria when they can’t serve all children under 3 years who have severe developmental delays. It may help for states to adopt more uniform eligibility criteria.”

Rosenberg and colleagues examined data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey — Birth Cohort and calculated the proportion of children who would be eligible for Part C early intervention based on definitions of delay currently used nationwide. Results indicated that the proportion of children aged 3 years or younger who were likely to be eligible for Part C services ranged from 2% to 78%, and the proportion of children currently enrolled ranged from 1.48% to 6.96%.

According to the researchers, Michigan had the broadest definition of developmental delay, allowing approximately 78% of all children aged 9 months and 58% of all children aged 24 months to be eligible for Part C. In 17 states, more than 50% of children were Part C eligible at 9 months. Some states — including Minnesota and Ohio — currently allow children with a delay of 1.5 standard deviation points below the mean in one or more of the five domains of developmental delay to be candidates for Part C services. Only 18 states have more restrictive criteria.

The largest discrepancies between the proportion of children who are Part C candidates and the proportion of children enrolled in those services were found in Washington and Michigan, where there are approximately 26 times more candidates than currently are served. Alaska, Arizona, Missouri and Washington, DC, have the most restrictive criteria, serving approximately the same number of children as are estimated to be Part C eligible.

“There is a pressing need to examine the tendency to adopt criteria that make large numbers of children with minimal delays candidates, while maintaining rates of enrollment that are too small to accommodate all infants and toddlers with significant delays,” the researchers wrote.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.