Free Developmental Screening For 2-Year-Olds June 7

Help Me Grow, a program of the new Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC), will be launching the Help Me Grow Campaign this spring to increase awareness of the critical need for universal developmental screening of children birth to five years of age and linkage of at-risk children to supports and services they need.

All children can benefit from developmental screening. Screening lets us catch potential developmental delays early on, and provide young children with the help they need to succeed,” comments Myra Jones-Taylor, Executive Director of the new Connecticut Office of Early Childhood. Too many young children still arrive at public school without having their developmental delays identified or getting the services and support they need during the critical early years of development.”

The mission of the Help Me Grow Program is to identify children who need this help early on in their development,” says Karen Foley-Schain, Division Director for the OECs Family Support Services Division, which oversees the Help Me Grow Program. The best way to identify the children who need help is through developmental screening, the use of a formal screening tool to check on development periodically from birth to five years. This screening is typically performed by health care or early care and education providers. It is our intention that the Help Me Grow Campaign bring visibility to our message through events to be held in April, May, and June in different communities around the state.”

As part of the Help Me Grow Campaign, The Lower Naugatuck Valley’s Early Childhood Task Force is hosting a free developmental screening event for 2‑year-olds at local child care centers in the Valley from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 7.

Staff will be available to help parents administer the Ages & Stages Parent Questionnaires (ASQ) to their 2‑year-olds.

Staff will score the ASQ and discuss the results with the parent. Families who attend the developmental screening event will be offered the opportunity to register to receive the ASQ on an ongoing basis from Help Me Grow so that they can keep an eye on their children’s development going forward.

Parents who are interested in the screening should contact Karen Hicks via email at ansoniadiscovery@yahoo.com to make an appointment. Screenings are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

All children who are screened at one of these events will receive a free book and a chance to win a tricycle.

Without developmental screening using a formal screening instrument, we can only identify 30 percent of the children who need help.

The Help Me Grow Campaign, through the free developmental screening events, will spread the word about universal developmental screening and early intervention, so we can identify 70 to 80 percent of the children at-risk of developmental or behavioral delay and get them the help they need to succeed in school and in life.

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