It would seem like a natural step in our care coordination efforts to refer a child with developmental delay for early intervention services. Yet not everyone is as eager to accept that help, even with a child demonstrating delay. In particular children of low-income Black and Hispanic mothers have been at time recalcitrant to accept help that is offered and the question is why? To answer that Magnusson et al. (10.1542/peds.2017-2059) share with us the results of a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews of 22 Black and Hispanic mothers of children with developmental delay who ranged in age from 0 to 36 months with most receiving public insurance. Five key themes emerged as reasons why these mothers are less receptive to our help, each of which also helped the authors identify a strategy to overcome this lack of receptivity. Rather than tell you the five, we hope you’ll link to this study and read about them with much more richness than we can share in a short blog.
In addition, the concept of different cultural beliefs within a particular race or ethnicity is further commented upon in an accompanying commentary (10.1542/peds.2017-2787) by quality of care experts Drs. Peacock-Chambers and Silverstein from Massachusetts. Check out both the study and editorial and you’ll find with the suggestions offered, that the lessons learned from these two articles may increase the willingness of your black and Hispanic low-income families to enroll as soon as delay is recognized in the early intervention services you offer rather than just say they will and subsequently not comply.
