It is important to diagnose a child as deaf or hard of hearing at an early age. An early diagnosis allows the family to use early intervention services to help the child learn language. This article summarizes research about early intervention services with deaf children. Early intervention services can help deaf and hard of hearing children in their first few years of life, starting soon after birth. Children need to learn their first language during infancy and early childhood. If this does not happen, they might never become completely fluent in any spoken, written, or signed language at all. The article explains the best practices used in early intervention services. It is for policy makers, decision makers, and people who design, coordinate, or implement early intervention services. The web page is partly accessible for people using screen reading software, but has some accessibility barriers. For example, some images do not use alternative text to describe them for people who cannot see. The same article on the web page is also available in PDF format. The PDF file is mostly accessible for people using screen reading software, but with some difficulty with navigation. Click here to show & hide the transcript with descriptionsTRANSCRIPT — DESCRIPTIONS AND CAPTIONS