The Education for all Handicapped children Act of 1975 started the course of action for early intervention programs. In this act, public schools that received federal funding were required to provide equal access to education for children with disabilities. Services for infants and toddlers was not included in the Act until the reauthorization in 1986.
On September 6, 2011, the US Department of Education updated the IDEA to include specific interventions for children of ages 2 and under that have disabilities. This section of the IDEA is entitled Part C and serves children with developmental delays or children that have conditions that may lead to developmental delays in the future. Part C is a $436 million initiative that will be administered at the state level.
On September 28, 2011, the Department of Education published an article in the Federal Register detailing the updates that have been made to Part C of the IDEA. The regulations are effective on October 28, 2011. Major changes in the regulations are detailed below:
- The definition of multidisciplinary has been revised to respect aspects of an updated individualized family service plan (IFSP) team.
-Native language is the language normally used by the parents of the child for any child that is deemed limited English proficient
-State's applications to must include how the State plans to follow the payor of last resort requirements in Section 303.511
-Distinguishes between pre-referral, referral, and post-referral IFSP activities such as screening, evaluations, assessments, IFSP development, etc.
-Specifies that early identification information is provided in the native languages of various population groups in the State
-State must report to the public the performance of each Early Intervention System program in relation to the State's Annual Performance Report