Medical Sciences Influences on Early Childhood Education

This chapter focuses largely on, first, the impact of medicine on the field of special early education and the growing use of the International Classification of Functioning that illustrates merging of intervention and rehabilitation processes into early education. It briefly addresses the impact of public health on early education through its emphasis on prevention. The medical model of education is based on the assumption that children’s non-typical learning needs are a direct result of a health disorder. It has had a significant influence on defining the landscape for special early education. Contributions of public health, epidemiology, and developmental pediatrics have also been reflected in the structural aspects of early childhood education settings. Early childhood education providers also express that there is a lack of proper procedures and standards surrounding injury prevention, specifically for outdoor play. More recently, the medical profession, with pediatricians in developed countries especially, has taken the social determinants of health approach to child development.