Characteristics of volunteers and families in a neonatal home visitation project: the Kempe Community Caring Program

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to review literature related to home visitation support for new families using volunteer visitors and to describe characteristics of volunteers of the Kempe Community Caring Program, a home visitor support program for first time parents. Suggestions for effectively utilizing volunteers in family support programs are made. METHOD: Program data was collected and reviewed on 592 volunteer home visitors and the 1,144 families they served. Several evaluations and assessments were performed in order to attempt to measure the success of the intervention. Motivation for volunteering, longevity with program, and the extent of sociodemographic match between visitor and client were reviewed and discussed. RESULTS: Information on matched volunteer-client pairs was limited; however, speculations were made that neither motivation to participate nor sociodemographic match were critical factors in determining success of the intervention. Duration of volunteer participation was influenced by marital status, but not by age. Married volunteers stayed with the program significantly longer than unmarried volunteers. Low risk families demonstrated slightly improved confidence in parental function after receiving home visitation by a volunteer. CONCLUSION: This program suggests that new mothers may benefit from receiving the services of a volunteer home visitor; specifically, their confidence as parents and ability to establish positive relationships show slight improvement. Likewise, volunteers and families felt satisfied with the supportive relationships generated. In addition, a volunteer profile emerged which may be beneficial to similar programs' recruiting efforts.     

Families at risk of poor parenting: A descriptive study of sixty at risk families in a model prevention program

Sixty families assessed to be at risk of poor parenting were the subject of this study. These families were participants in a model multidisciplinary program designed for the secondary prevention of poor parenting and the extremes of child abuse and neglect. The model program consists of special medical, psychological, social and developmental services to families on an inpatient, outpatient, and in-home basis. Demographic information on these 60 families was tabulated. Each family was given a monthly rating on a simple measure of family function. Ratings over lime were observed, and families were characterized in terms of a family rating vector (up. up-plateau, plateau, fluctuating, and down). Families were also described in terms of the constellation of problems brought to the therapy situation. Problem lists for each family were subjected to factor analysis. Five factor constructs which made clinical sense emerged from the analysis. Each factor could be labeled as a “family type.” These types were: (I) Abusive Family. (II) Neglectful or Antisocial Family. (III) Family with an Emotionally Unstable Parent, (IV) Family with Cultural or intellectual Limitation, and (V) Family with Child-Rearing Difficulties. Approximately 20% of these families did not fit the typology. Families were then divided into two groups—those who were relatively long-term, ongoing recipients of services, and those who left the program in the observation interval. Families were categorized according to family function rating vector and “family type.” It was noted among long-term families, measured improvement in family function was most evident in families with transient situational crisis (who did not fit the typology) and those with intellectual and cultural deficits (Type IV). Among the families who dropped from the program. 15% were no longer at risk. Sixty-three percent of the remaining families were not improving. These techniques may be useful in determining which at risk families are more successful candidates for prevention efforts.     

Effectiveness of Spanish intervention for first-grade English language learners at risk for reading difficulties

The effectiveness of an explicit, systematic reading intervention for first-grade students whose home language was Spanish and who were at risk for reading difficulties was examined. Participants were 69 students in 20 classrooms in 7 schools from 3 districts who initially did not pass the screening in Spanish and were randomly assigned within schools to a treatment or comparison group; after 7 months, 64 students remained in the study. The intervention matched the language of instruction of their core reading program (Spanish). Treatment groups of 3 to 5 students met daily for 50 min and were provided systematic and explicit instruction in oral language and reading by trained bilingual intervention teachers. Comparison students received the school's standard intervention for struggling readers. Observations during core reading instruction provided information about the reading instruction and language use of the teachers. There were no differences between the treatment and comparison groups in either Spanish or English on any measures at pretest, but there were significant posttest differences in favor of the treatment group for the following outcomes in Spanish: Letter-Sound Identification (d = 0.72), Phonological Awareness composite (d = 0.73), Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised Oral Language composite (d = 0.35), Word Attack (d = 0.85), Passage Comprehension (d = 0.55), and two measures of reading fluency (d = 0.58-0.75).     

Families at risk of poor parenting: A model for service delivery,assessment, and intervention

The At Risk Parent Child Program is a multidisciplinary network agency designed for the secondary prevention of poor parenting and the extremes of child abuse and neglect. This model system of service delivery emphasizes (1) the coordination of existing community resources to access a target population of families at risk of parenting problems, (2) the provision of multiple special services in a neutral location (ambulatory pediatric clinic), and (3) the importance of intensive individual contact with a clinical professional who serves as primary therapist, social advocate and service coordinator for client families. Identification and assessment of families is best done during prenatal and perinatal periods. Both formal and informal procedures for screening for risk factors are described, and a simple set of at risk criteria for use by hospital nursing staff is provided. Preventive intervention strategies include special medical, psychological, social and developmental services, offered in an inpatient; outpatient, or in-home setting. Matching family needs to modality and setting of treatment is a major program concern. All direct services to at risk families are supplied by professionals employed within existing local agencies (hospital, public health department, state guidance center, and medical school pediatric clinic). Multiple agency involvement allows a broad-based screening capacity which allows thousands of families routine access to program services. The administrative center of the network stands as an independent, community-funded core which coordinates and monitors direct clinical services, and provides local political advocacy for families at risk of parenting problems.     

Young children at risk of literacy difficulties: factors predicting recovery from risk following phonologically based intervention

This longitudinal project identified young children at risk of literacy difficulties and asked why some of these children fail to benefit from phonologically based intervention. Reception class children were screened to identify a group at risk of literacy difficulties and a matched group of children not at risk. Profiles were compiled for each child including measures of reading, spelling, memory, rapid naming, vocabulary and phonological awareness. A daily, 15‐week, small group intervention was implemented with 67 at‐risk children. Those who had not made progress in their literacy following this intervention participated in a second, individually administered intervention. The results indicate that letter knowledge and expressive vocabulary are key factors mediating a child's ability to benefit from a phonologically based intervention. Findings are discussed in the context of a lexical restructuring account of the development of spoken word recognition.     

Modeling risk for child abuse and harsh parenting in families with depressed and substance-abusing parents

Children with substance abusing parents are at considerable risk for child maltreatment. The current study applied an actor–partner interdependence model to examine how father only (n = 52) and dual couple (n = 33) substance use disorder, as well as their depressive symptomology influenced parents’ own (actor effects) and the partner's (partner effects) overreactivity in disciplinary interactions with their children, as well as their risk for child maltreatment. Parents completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977), the overreactivity subscale from the Parenting Scale (Arnold, O’Leary, Wolff, & Acker, 1993), and the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (Ondersma, Chaffin, Mullins, & LeBreton, 2005). Results of multigroup structural equation models revealed that a parent's own report of depressive symptoms predicted their risk for child maltreatment in both father SUD and dual SUD couples. Similarly, a parent's report of their own depressive symptoms predicted their overreactivity in disciplinary encounters both in father SUD and dual SUD couples. In all models, partners’ depressive symptoms did not predict their partner's risk for child maltreatment or overreactivity. Findings underscore the importance of a parent's own level of depressive symptoms in their risk for child maltreatment and for engaging in overreactivity during disciplinary episodes.     

Video self-modelling: an intervention for children with behavioural difficulties

There has recently been a growth in interest in the use of video technology in the practice of educational psychologists. This research explores the effects of a video self-modelling (VSM) intervention on the behaviours of a child in mainstream education using a single case study design set within a behaviourist paradigm. VSM is a behavioural intervention that requires the participant, in this instance a six year old boy, to view a short video of himself engaging in target behaviours. Baseline and post-intervention data were collected through classroom-based observations by the researcher in order to monitor the frequencies of the target behaviours and to evaluate the effectiveness of the VSM intervention. The participant demonstrated higher frequencies of target behaviours following the intervention. The results suggest that VSM is a promising method for educational psychologists to use as a proactive approach with pupils in educational settings to improve target behaviours.     

Kindergarten cognitive intervention for reading difficulties: The PREP remediation in Greek

This study reports two different experiments, as a part of a longitudinal study, that evaluated a cognitive intervention (PREP: PASS Reading Enhancement Program) to enhance early phonological processing skills, such as odd-word-out, segmenting, and blending, to kindergarten children at-rish for reading difficulties, in order to support the development of subsequent word reading skills. As part of the first experiment, thirty children aged 5.1, matched on the basis of age, gender, parental education levels, Non-verbal and Verbal IQ, were assigned to an experimental and a control group (15 in each group) and compared before and after the four-week intervention on a set of phonological and cognitive (successive and simultaneous processing) measures. The two groups of participants were screened to be significantly different at pre-test on the outcome measures. The results of the first experiment indicated that the experimental group performed equally well with the control group on all the measures of phonological and cognitive processing skills. Subsequent analysis focusing on aptitude-treatment interaction indicated that the PREP program appeared to be optimally successful in improving phonological skills in cases where the cognitive profile of the 5-year-olds matched the emphasis on successive information integration. The follow-up experiment examined the long-term effects of PREP remediation. Results showed that both the experimental and control groups performed equally well on word reading tasks and, more importantly, on the bridging PREP tasks, requiring knowledge of the alphabet and of letter-sound correspondences, despite that neither of the groups had been previously trained on the latter. Discussion concludes that intervention including inductive training on the distal cognitive processes, namely successive and simultaneous processing, appears to be effective for enhancing early word-reading skills to kindergarten children at-risk for reading difficulties, even in the absence of direct training of these skills in kindergarten.     

Profile of Australian preschool children with speech sound disorders at risk for literacy difficulties

Abstract

Speech sound disorders are a common communication difficulty in preschool children. Teachers indicate difficulty identifying and supporting these children. The aim of this research was to describe speech and language characteristics of children identified by their parents and/or teachers as having possible communication concerns. 275 Australian 4- to 5-year-old children from 45 preschools whose parents and teachers were concerned about their talking participated in speech-language pathology assessments to examine speech, language, literacy, non-verbal intelligence, oromotor skills and hearing. The majority (71.3%) of children demonstrated lower consonant accuracy than expected for their age, 63.9% did not pass the language-screening task, 65.5% had not been assessed and 72.4% had not received intervention from a speech-language pathologist. The 132 children who were identified with speech sound disorder (phonological impairment) were more likely to be male (62.9%) who were unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners, and had poor emergent literacy and phonological processing skills, despite having typical hearing, oral structures, and intelligence. Children identified by parents and teachers with concerns may have a range of speech, language and communication needs requiring professional support.     

QuickSmart: a basic academic skills intervention for middle school students with learning difficulties

QuickSmart is a basic academic skills intervention designed for persistently low-achieving students in the middle years of schooling that aims to improve the automaticity of basic skills to improve higher-order processes, such as problem solving and comprehension, as measured on standardized tests. The QuickSmart instructional program consists of three structured, teacher- or teacher aide-directed, 30-minute, small-group lessons each week for approximately 26 weeks. In this study, 42 middle school students experiencing learning difficulties (LD) completed the QuickSmart reading program, and a further 42 students with LD took part in the QuickSmart mathematics program. To investigate the effects of the intervention, comparisons were made between the reading and mathematics progress of the intervention group and a group of 10 high-achieving and 10 average-achieving peers. The results indicated that although the standardized reading comprehension and mathematics scores of QuickSmart students remained below those of comparison students, they improved significantly from pretest to posttest. In contrast, the standardized scores of comparison students were not significantly different from pretest to posttest. On measures of response speed and accuracy gathered using the Cognitive Aptitude Assessment System (CAAS), QuickSmart students were able to narrow the gap between their performance and that of their high- and average-achieving peers. Implications are drawn regarding the importance of interventions that emphasize the automaticity of basic academic skills for students with learning difficulties.     

The response to intervention of English language learners at risk for reading problems

The response to intervention (RTI) of English language learners identified as at risk for reading difficulties in the fall of first grade was examined at the end of first grade and at the end of second grade. Students at risk for reading problems were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups. Intervention students received supplemental reading intervention daily for 50 minutes in small groups from October to April. Students in the comparison condition received the school's existing instructional program for struggling readers. Criteria were established to determine adequate RTI at the end of first grade and at the end of second grade. The results indicated that more students who participated in the first-grade intervention in either Spanish or English met the established RTI standards than students who did not, and this finding was maintained through the end of second grade.     

Number sense growth in kindergarten: a longitudinal investigation of children at risk for mathematics difficulties

Number sense development of 411 middle- and low-income kindergartners (mean age 5.8 years) was examined over 4 time points while controlling for gender, age, and reading skill. Although low-income children performed significantly worse than middle-income children at the end of kindergarten on all tasks, both groups progressed at about the same rate. An exception was story problems, on which the low-income group achieved at a slower rate; both income groups made comparable progress when the same problems were presented nonverbally with visual referents. Holding other predictors constant, there were small but reliable gender effects favoring boys on overall number sense performance as well as on nonverbal calculation. Using growth mixture modeling, 3 classes of growth trajectories in number sense emerged.     

Code-oriented instruction for kindergarten students at risk for reading difficulties: a replication and comparison of instructional groupings

The purposes of this study were to replicate previous research on phonics-based tutoring in kindergarten and to compare treatment effects for students who received individual instruction compared to instruction in dyads. Thirty classroom teachers from 13 urban elementary schools referred at-risk students for participation. Students who met screening criteria were quasi-randomly assigned, within classroom, to one of three conditions: individual tutoring (n = 22), tutoring in dyads (n = 32), or no tutoring (n = 22, classroom instruction only). Twenty-one paraeducators provided 18 weeks of explicit instruction in phonemic skills and the alphabetic code to students during the latter half of kindergarten. Multilevel model results showed that tutored students outperformed non-tutored controls on posttest measures of phonological awareness, word reading accuracy, oral reading fluency, spelling, and comprehension. However, no significant differences were found between the two tutored groups on any measure, suggesting that code-oriented tutoring for pairs of students is a viable alternative to the gold standard of individual instruction.     

Obstetrics and the family: Identification of mothers at risk for parenting failure,and methods of support

The nurturing of a child has been termed the “Irrational commitment” [1]—“the enduring, irrational commitment of one or more adults in care and joint activity with the child.” The paper examines ways of facilitating this kind of caring. It is not enough to utilise the extensive technology and skills now available in obstetrics and paediatrics if there is a failure to ensure that the parents are able to nurture and enjoy their new infant. Success can only be claimed if parents are assisted in establishing a mutually satisfying relationship with their infants, i.e. they make an irrational commitment to the nurturing of their children. Results from a study of early identification and prediction of major parenting difficulty within the maternity hospital [7] are given and some of the various methods of early intervention and support now being undertaken to assist in the establishment of good nurturing between mothers and infants are described.     

The curriculum for children with severe and profound learning difficulties at Stephen Hawking School

The increasing number of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties means that many schools for children with severe learning difficulties are having to review the curriculum that they offer. In addition, these schools are continuing to question whether a subject‐based approach, in line with the National Curriculum, is the most appropriate way of meeting the educational needs of children working at the earliest stages of development. The staff at Stephen Hawking School, in east London, have been reviewing their curriculum over the past two years to try and meet the needs of their changing population, the needs of the National Curriculum and the suggestions and proposals in both the Rose and Cambridge reviews.     

The effects of the Healthy Steps for Young Children Program: results from observations of parenting and child development

The Healthy Steps for Young Children Program (HS) is designed to provide support for new parents through the pediatrician's office. We present findings of the effect of HS on the quality of mother–child interaction, security of attachment, and child behavior using observational data from two of the HS sites that utilized a randomized treatment design. Results indicated that mothers participating in Healthy Steps were more likely to interact sensitively and appropriately than mothers in the comparison group at the second assessment point (age 34–37 months) but not at the first assessment point (age 16–18 months). There were no differences in child outcomes at either time point when the cross-sectional data were analyzed. However, the results of the longitudinal analysis (which included families who participated in the home observations at both Time 1 and Time 2) indicated that Healthy Steps participation was associated with greater security of attachment and fewer child behavior problems.     

Sensory integrative therapy as an intervention procedure with Grade One “at risk” readers ‐‐ a three year study

The study was concerned with assessing the effectiveness of sensory integrative therapy as an intervention method on a group of grade one children ‐‐ predicted to be “at risk” for later reading failure. Following two half‐hour therapy sessions per week over twenty‐four weeks, the experimental group performed significantly higher than the control group on measures of reading ability. These gains were maintained over a two‐year non‐intervention period.     

Just for them to understand better: The impact of learning difficulties at university

Abstract

There has been much attention given to the needs of students with learning disabilities in Australian schools in recent years. The needs and experiences of university students with learning disabilities have received less attention. This article reports on the results of a small study of students who identified as having a range of difficulties with learning at one Australian university. Eight students across a range of discipline areas and year levels were asked about the nature of their difficulties, the kinds of adjustments they receive and their effectiveness, and for their suggestions about how these adjustments could be improved. The results pointed to the need for university lecturers to better understand the kinds of learning difficulties experienced by such students. Such an understanding can assist lecturers in knowing how to adjust their teaching and learning practices so these students can more fully participate and be successful in their university studies.