Early intervention practices in Turkey is widely based on the principle of neuro-developmental therapy (NDT). It has been reported in recent years that the NDT approach has minimal effect on the development of risky premature infants. For these reasons, it was necessary to develop an early intervention program that does not include passive interventions and includes sensory and motor strategies in our country.~Within the scope of this study, a new early intervention approach that can be applied to infants between 0-24 months has been developed based on the shortcomings in the literature. Sensory strategies, activity-based motor training, family collaboration and environmental enrichment constitute the basic principles of this early intervention program. The name of the early intervention program was formed from the English initials of these basic principles and was determined as SAFE early intervention approach (S: Sensory Strategies, A: Activity Based Motor Training, F: Family Collaboration, E: Environmental Enrichment).~In this study, it was planned to establish the theoretical and practical foundations of the SAFE early intervention approach developed by the Gazi University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation. Also we aimed to examine the effects of this approach on sensory, motor, cognitive and language development in preterm infants with corrected ages of 9-10 months.
In this study, it was aimed to develop the SAFE treatment approach, which is a family collaborative early intervention approach based on sensory strategies, activity-based motor training and environmental enrichment, and to examine the effects of this approach on sensory, motor, cognitive and language development in premature infants.