Criticism of EI

In the State of Georgia the program "Babies Can't wait" was put in place to assist parents in finding their child Early Intervention Therapy. The program works the same as many government mandated Early Intervention programs in that it first evaluates the child for free and then deems what services the child needs to receive. However, this particular program has received two major criticisms: one being a timeline and the other being the collaborative model it provides.

Once referred to "Babies Can't Wait" the program has 45 days to evaluate the child, then the program has another 45 days to develop a plan and provide services for the child. Due to limited providers working with "Babies Can't Wait" it is possible this 90 timeline is not met and the services not be provided.

The collaborative model that "Babies Can't Wait" provides works in a way that all of the medical professionals communicate with each other about the services each child needs provided. However, it works in such a way that a Physical Therapist would consult with a Speech Therapist and then the Physical Therapist would provide the child with speech therapy as part of the child's physical therapy session instead of the child having an additional therapy session with the Speech Therapist.

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