The American Medical Association undertook a 27-month-long study of 900 racially and ethnically diverse infants designed to compare “in-clinic use of health literacy-information booklets” provided at well-baby visits to the use of information booklets plus “individually tailored, responsive text messages . . . and a web-based dashboard” that parents could access at home. Results were measured using weight-for-length data for infants over the first 24 months of life and indicated that, across racial and ethnic groups, the risk of childhood obesity was reduced when both written and verbal information, along with individualized text messages and digital follow-up, were used. The authors summed up their findings by reporting that “adding a digital intervention to health behavior counseling improved growth trajectories over the first 24 months among a racially and ethnically diverse population compared with health behavior counseling alone.” Download a PDF of the journal article here.
The ICC-Recommended Early Start Personnel Manual (ESPM) describes core knowledge and role-specific competencies needed for early intervention service provision, incorporating current research and evidence in the field of early intervention. Click here to access the ESPM. Scroll down to find the ESPM entry.
This resource is related to the following ESPM knowledge-level competencies:
- Core Knowledge (CK):
- CK3: The prenatal care, delivery, and postnatal care of the infant, including variations across families, cultural, and ethnic groups.
- Individualized Family Service Plan Development and Review (IFSP-DR):
- IFSP-DR6 (EIS): Understands when there is a need for other professionals in specific disciplines to provide services to address IFSP outcomes.
- Individualized Family Service Plan Implementation (IFSP-i):
- IFSP-i3 (EIS): Knows generic and specific evidence-based early intervention strategies to support all areas of development.
- IFSP-i10 (EIS): Knows strategies that support parents in providing basic health, nutrition, and safety for infants and toddlers in natural environments.