What do we mean by 'Early Intervention'?

Following on from the close of our Dyslexia & Me Mental Health campaign last month, we’re switching focus for July and taking a closer look at another aspect of the dyslexia experience that maybe doesn’t get the attention- or the definitions- that it deserves in online discourse. For the next two weeks, we’ll be exploring anything and everything early intervention. We’ll be covering what this means, why it matters, what differences it can make for people with dyslexia, and we’ll be chatting to experts from our global dyslexia community for their perspectives on why it’s important to explore these possibilities early so that individuals can get the best help and support possible.

We’ll start with a definition today: what do we actually mean when we use the phrase ‘early intervention’?

Early intervention simply means identifying and providing effective early support to children and young people who have a certain factor acting in their lives that could lead to less than ideal outcomes. This could be a neurodivergence, such as dyslexia or ADHD, it could be an environmental factor, such as a lack of access to certain resources, or it could be something behavioural or social. It’s an idea that works on the principle of identifying and supporting issues that arise before they have the time to create situations where individuals fall behind in their learning. If we intervene early, it means that we can bridge that support gap before it truly becomes evident in a learning and testing sense, and prevents their effects becoming more apparent.

If we intervene and diagnose later, although still important for many individuals whose dyslexia and literacy differences have been missed prior to it, they have already had the time to see their peers progress in front of them, perhaps scored low on exams, and experienced many of the emotional effects that arise from experiencing it.

When it comes to dyslexia, experts tend to suggest that the best time to intervene is around the ages of four to six. Although it may perhaps seem odd to people who haven’t experienced it, it is entirely possible to pick up on dyslexia here, well before children develop any of their more complex reading skills – vanishingly few people have to be at the level where they can read things like Harry Potter before their dyslexia becomes apparent. Research suggests that diagnosing and intervening during the 4-6 window means that a high percentage of individuals have a very strong chance of going on to become confident, competent readers, whereas if we leave this later- to between the ages of nine and ten, say- these percentages tend to drop off, with more and more of them being at risk of problematic gaps in reading skills becoming a feature of their educational career.

When we talk about early intervention, what we really mean at first is early diagnosis- interventions usually come as a result of somebody receiving a dyslexia diagnosis and then going to their educational services provider to ask for help. That’s why it’s important to know the signs and signifiers of dyslexia in younger children, as well as in more developed readers and writers- we’ll be covering this over the coming month, and a cursory Google search can reveal all kinds of hidden symptoms that may indicate a child has dyslexia long before they’re at the stage where they’re reading and writing full sentences. This is also why so many people across the world call for what we call ‘universal screening’ – screening every child in a year group for potential dyslexia to make sure that it’s not missed and we can provide these learning solutions in a timely manner.

Intervention can mean a lot of things on a technical level: we’ll be exploring some of these options too, from resources and reading materials to the Assistive Tech solutions that can have life-changing power and open up a world of books like never before. But on a base level, when we say intervention we simply mean we intervene to impede the potential negative progress that a factor like dyslexia can have in somebody’s learning. It’s not really a case of ‘stopping dyslexia before it gets bad’, it’s more about giving an individual the resources they need to succeed alongside dyslexia, and cater for a more unique learning style that might suit them better than standard reading and learning instruction.

If you’re looking for a primer on early intervention- or you’re simply at a loose end this morning with a cup of coffee and an empty inbox- we’d suggest you check out our recent webinar with Paloma Forde, the CEO and Founder of Screening4Dyslexia – How Early Intervention can Change Dyslexic Lives, available right here.