ABSTRACT
Early intervention is based on the assumption that the early years provide a unique opportunity to (i) influence and enhance children’s development, (ii) minimise potential difficulties and the need for special educational services and (iii) enhance the capacity of the families to support children’s development (McCollum 2002). Early intervention represents all those efforts made ‘to support, facilitate, or alter behaviours’ which young children demonstrate (Malone and Langone 1999:325). In the early years, the use of play as the context in which such efforts take place has led to the notion of play-based intervention (Sigafoos 1999).
