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Working with the Birth through Five Population

Early childhood experiences can build strong foundations or fragile ones and can affect the way children react and respond to the world around them for the rest of their lives. The early social and emotional development of infants and toddlers is vulnerable to factors, such as repeated exposure to violence, persistent fear and stress, abuse and neglect, severe chronic maternal depression, biological factors such as prematurity and low birth weight, and conditions associated with prenatal substance exposure. Without intervention, these risk factors can result in behavioral health disorders including depression, attachment disorders, and traumatic stress disorders, which can have an effect on later school performance and daily life functioning.

Children who have been maltreated are at an increased risk for behavioral health concerns, poor psychological adaptation and lifelong health difficulties. Children entering the child welfare system have higher rates of exposure to traumatic events with most victims of child abuse and neglect being under the age of five. Important assets such as health attachment, social and emotional competency, self-assurance, confidence, and independence can be undermined as a result of trauma.

Please visit AHCCCS AMPM 210 for the Behavioral Health Practice Tool for working with the birth through five population.

The following tools and resources can provide additional information when assessing developmental milestones, behavioral, emotional and social concerns, trauma and attachment:

  1. Ages and Stages Questionnairexxv (ASQ): developmental and social-emotional screening for children age one month to five and ½ years,
  2. Hawaii Early Learning Profilexxvi (HELP): curriculum-based assessment covering regulatory/sensory organization, cognitive, language, gross and fine motor, social and self-help areas for children birth to three years, separate profile available for three to six year old children,
  3. Infant-Toddler Social-Emotional Assessment (ITSEA©): measures social- emotional and behavioral domains for children one to three years of age,
  4. Connor’s Early Childhood Assessment: aids in the early identification of behavioral, social, and emotional concerns and achievement of developmental milestones for children two to six years of age,
  5. Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS): evidence-based screening of developmental and behavioral concerns for children birth to eight years, and
  6. Trauma-Attachment Belief Scales (TABSTM): measure cognitive beliefs about self and others for parents/caregivers age 17 and older to assist with identifying possible trauma history and its potential impact on the attachment relationship between the parent/caregiver and the child.

    The Infant/Toddler Mental Health Coalition of Arizona is a voluntary 501c (3) organization which promotes the understanding that infancy is a critically important period in psychosocial development.  To become a member and endorsed, visit https://itmhca.org/endorsement/howtoapply.php.