Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Contributors
- PART ONE INTRODUCTION
- PART TWO CONCEPTS OF DEVELOPMENTAL VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE
- PART THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR INTERVENTION
- PART FOUR APPROACHES TO ASSESSMENT
- PART FIVE SERVICE DELIVERY MODELS AND SYSTEMS
- 15 Preventive Health Care and Anticipatory Guidance
- 16 Early Care and Education: Current Issues and Future Strategies
- 17 Early Intervention for Low-Income Children and Families
- 18 Services for Young Children with Disabilities and Their Families
- 19 Early Childhood Mental Health Services: A Policy and Systems Development Perspective
- 20 Paraprofessionals Revisited and Reconsidered
- 21 Personnel Preparation for Early Childhood Intervention Programs
- PART SIX MEASURING THE IMPACT OF SERVICE DELIVERY
- PART SEVEN NEW DIRECTIONS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Name Index
- Subject Index
15 - Preventive Health Care and Anticipatory Guidance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Contributors
- PART ONE INTRODUCTION
- PART TWO CONCEPTS OF DEVELOPMENTAL VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE
- PART THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR INTERVENTION
- PART FOUR APPROACHES TO ASSESSMENT
- PART FIVE SERVICE DELIVERY MODELS AND SYSTEMS
- 15 Preventive Health Care and Anticipatory Guidance
- 16 Early Care and Education: Current Issues and Future Strategies
- 17 Early Intervention for Low-Income Children and Families
- 18 Services for Young Children with Disabilities and Their Families
- 19 Early Childhood Mental Health Services: A Policy and Systems Development Perspective
- 20 Paraprofessionals Revisited and Reconsidered
- 21 Personnel Preparation for Early Childhood Intervention Programs
- PART SIX MEASURING THE IMPACT OF SERVICE DELIVERY
- PART SEVEN NEW DIRECTIONS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
The field of pediatrics emerged as a medical specialty in response to the realization that children's health problems differ from those of adults. At the beginning of the twentieth century, physicians were concerned only with the treatment of illness and confined their efforts to the child when sick, rather than focusing on the maintenance of health (Cone, 1979). Health supervision of children was limited, at most, to a cursory examination to detect signs of contagious illness. In the United States, the earliest origins of preventive child health care were found in the milk stations and urban child health conferences where infants could be brought to be fed, weighed, examined, and later immunized against contagious diseases (Hoekelman, 1997).
In the middle years of the twentieth century, child health services were altered dramatically by the improved control of infection as a result of the introduction of antibiotic agents, enhanced sanitation, the implementation of effective public health measures, and the development of an array of effective immunizations. With the resultant dramatic reduction in childhood morbidity and mortality (i.e., the childhood mortality rate today is nearly twenty-five times less than it was in 1900), attention shifted from an exclusive focus on the treatment of illness to the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. Indeed, the importance of preventive care was a major impetus for the establishment of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and it continues to distinguish the discipline of pediatrics from other medical specialties (Hoekelman, 1997).
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- Information
- Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention , pp. 327 - 338Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
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