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Early Intervention Service

Photograph - Down Syndrome Education International
Photograph - Down Syndrome Education International
Photograph - Down Syndrome Education International
Photograph - Down Syndrome Education International

The charity's innovative early intervention service for children who have Down syndrome provides structured activities to promote development during the preschool years.


We offer early intervention services for babies up to 18 months and children from 18 months to 4 years:

  • Our Baby Development Groups (for babies under 18 months) work with parents and their babies to promote development from the earliest months.  
  • Our Early Development Groups (for children from 18 months to 4 years) work with parents to help their children develop language, cognitive and social skills.

About the service

Innovative interventions to promote development

Run by our in-house team, the early intervention service provides structured activities to promote the development of babies and preschool children with Down syndrome. Find out more about our early intervention service...

Joining the service

We provide our early intervention service for children and families living within 70 miles of The Sarah Duffen Centre in Portsmouth, UK. If you live within this catchment area, click here to find out more about joining the early intervention service...

Sharing techniques to maximise impact

We are committed to sharing the research-based activities that have been proven to work in our early intervention services, in order to benefit as many children with Down syndrome as possible. We share these model services through our wide range of publishing, training, advice and information activities. Much of our See and Learn programme is based on the curriculum we have developed for our early intervention service.

Improving statutory provision

Based on our unique experience, we have played a leading advisory role in the UK government's Early Support project. More about improving statutory provision...