Early intervention: Bridging the gap between practice and academia

Prevention and early intervention have increasingly become a focus of basic and applied research in child and adolescent psychiatry.In recent years, the emergent field of infant psychiatry has made significant progress.Many countries in the world try to invest more in prevention and intervention programs at the beginning of life, in an effort to decrease later health costs related to psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence [1].Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health provides an international forum for addressing important and timely issues in child mental health.In this context, we present a special section on early intervention in infants and preschoolers, in order to give an overview of the latest developments in this field and new research and practical reports from different settings and countries.