The Opening Doors to Early Intervention Study

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Development Delay
Development, Child

Interventions: Behavioral: Family Navigator (FN)

Registration Number: NCT03625115

Lead Sponsor: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Brief Summary: Poor urban minority children often experience delays in their early development leading to health disparities. Publicly funded early intervention services are available to improve child development among these children in Philadelphia, but few children access and complete these services. This can be due to parents misunderstanding what the services include or may be due to difficulties parents experience in overcoming barriers to participating. This study will test the effectiveness of the Opening Doors to Early Intervention Program, a patient navigation intervention designed to improve families' engagement with early intervention services and overcome barriers to access these services, on early child development.

Detailed Description: Developmental delays are frequently encountered among young children and disproportionately affect impoverished minority children leading to disparities in early child development. To promote healthy child development, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandated early intervention (EI) services be made available to young children with delays, but only half of at-risk children initiate and complete EI services. As a result, many at-risk children may not receive needed services to improve their development. To foster initiation and completion of EI services, Investigators developed the Opening Doors to Early Intervention Program, a patient navigation intervention based on the Health Belief Model and targeted to at-risk urban minority children. An initial pilot study among at-risk children demonstrated feasibility and generated promising results. Therefore, this Community-Based Participatory Research application proposes to test the effectiveness of this program in a single urban county using a randomized trial design. The specific aims are to 1) determine the effectiveness of the Opening Doors to early Intervention Program on child developmental status and EI referral and services use, 2) assess whether parent engagement in early intervention mediates the effects of the program, and 3) explore whether the home learning environment, parental health literacy, and poverty moderate the effects of the program. This application addresses health disparities in early childhood by testing an intervention designed to improve participation rates in EI among urban minority children and their families on measures of early child development and EI services use. Three to four primary care pediatric clinics that provide care to this diverse urban community will be recruited to participate. Three hundred sixty children who are less than 30 months of age and have been identified as developmentally at-risk and referred for EI services at participating clinics will be randomized to receive the Opening Doors to Early Intervention Program or usual care. Urban minority parents who have previously participated in EI services will be trained as patient navigators to provide education, motivation, and assistance for families with initiation and completion of EI referrals and services. Clinicians and Child Find staff will provide usual care consisting of developmental screening and referrals without assistance. Information on participant demographic characteristics, health literacy, and the home learning environment at baseline; parent engagement and EI referral and services completion at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months; and child development at 12 months will be collected during scheduled study visits. Differences in outcomes between intervention and control participants will be compared using intention-to-treat analysis. Findings from this comparative effectiveness study can be disseminated to similar large urban counties across the U.S. to inform Child Find and EI procedures and address disparities in early child development.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: COMPLETED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 357

Inclusion Criteria

Child is <30 months old at time of enrollment
Child was born >35 weeks estimated gestational age
Parent-child dyad reside in Philadelphia and present at a Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) primary care practice located in Philadelphia
Parents are English or Spanish speaking
Child has recently been referred to the Philadelphia Infant Toddler Early Intervention Program in Philadelphia County

Exclusion Criteria

Child moves outside of Philadelphia County
Child has received EI services in the past 2 weeks
Child has congenital anomalies, genetic syndromes, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that place them at risk of developmental delays

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Family Navigator (Intervention)	Family Navigator (FN)	Dyads randomized to the Intervention arm with be assigned a designated Family Navigator (FN) who will engage, inform, and assist the participating parents to follow-through with the process of EI referrals and services.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Early Intervention Referral Completion	up to 12 months	Completion of early intervention referrals defined as completing a multidisciplinary assessment (MDE).
Evaluation of the Child's Cognitive Functioning (i.e., Sensorimotor Development, Problem Solving Skills)	12 months	The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (BSID-III) is a validated assessment of infant and toddler development for use with 1-42 month olds. The Cognitive domain consists of developmental play tasks that are administered to obtain a developmental quotient in order to determine the child's level of cognitive functioning. The composite score of the Cognitive domain is derived from a single scaled test score from the Cognitive Scale (as opposed to being comprised of the summation of scaled scores from multiple subscales, such as with the BSID-III Language and Motor composite scores). The total composite score may range from 40 to 160. Higher values denote stronger skills and abilities in the domain, indicating better outcomes. Composite scores are scaled to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.
Early Intervention Services Initiation	up to 12 months	Initiation of early intervention services if deemed eligible for services, defined as participants who started services.
Evaluation of the Child's Overall Language Functioning (Receptive and Expressive Language Skills and Abilities)	12 months	The BSID-III language scale will be used to assess both the understanding of language (receptive language) and use or expression of language (expressive language) skills, such as following simple directions, and naming or identifying objects and pictures. The total composite score of the Language functioning domain is composed of the sum of both the Receptive Language and the Expressive Language subscales' scaled scores. The total Language composite score may range from 40 to 160. Higher values denote stronger skills and abilities in the domain, indicating better outcomes. Composite scores are scaled to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Public Policy Changes	up to 12 months	Changes in state policy regarding early intervention services. During the time of the study, the COVID-19 pandemic began, which affected early intervention services and policies. This timeline is broken down into the following time periods. Period 1-Early Intervention in person pre pandemic: Study start date - March 19th, 2020 Period 2-Early Intervention complete closure: March 20th, 2020 - early April 2020 Period 3: Early Intervention Virtual Only: early April 2020 - June 2nd, 2020 Period 4: Early Intervention Hybrid: June 3rd, 2020 - current (in line with Governor Wolf's process to reopen plan, this was when services and evaluations were done both virtually and in person)