Early Intervention for Children Prenatally Exposed to Cocaine

This article brings together information from our experience of providing research-based intervention to more than 600 children who were prenatally exposed to cocaine and from the research literature on the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure. Based on our experience and this literature, it is now clear that there are no large negative independent effects of cocaine exposure and that there is no “crack baby” syndrome. However, many of these children who have been exposed to cocaine are at risk for poor developmental outcomes, particularly in the area of language development, primarily because of the environmental factors that are associated with parental substance abuse. As our intervention research shows, early intervention can be effective in ameliorating some of this risk. Suggestions are made regarding programmatic steps that should be taken next to further improve program effectiveness and enhance the knowledge base.