Supplementation of urban home visitation with a series of group meetings for parents and infants: results of a “real-world” randomized, controlled trial

Objective: Home visitation has been shown to be effective in reducing rates of child maltreatment and in enhancing psychosocial outcomes in children and their parents. Even when available, however, it is underutilized by parents in some urban settings. We tested a supplemental 10-session group intervention for its ability to increase active participation in home visitation, enhance the quality of caregiving behavior of parents, and improve social developmental outcome in children.Method: A randomized controlled design was utilized, involving two separate cohorts of parents of 3- to 18-month old infants, totaling 148 parent-child dyads. The intervention focused on practical experience in promoting parent-infant attachment relationships.Results: At 6 months follow-up, there was a substantial increase in the proportion of intervention group parents participating in home visitation, compared to parents in the control group (Fisher’s exact p = .008). Parents in the intervention group exhibited a trend for improvement in their capacity to appropriately interpret infants’ emotional cues (p = .08), independent of the effects of home visitation itself. Attrition in both the treatment and control groups was inversely associated with income and level of education.Conclusions: Group meetings may constitute an effective means of engaging stressed urban families in home visitation.     

An interprofessional education initiative between psychology and dentistry: an exploration of students’ perceptions of confidence

ABSTRACT

Part of preparing future health professionals for multidisciplinary work environments involves interprofessional education (IPE). We explore students’ perceptions of confidence during IPE and how this impacts their ability to contribute to interprofessional learning. The written reflections of 115 undergraduate Psychology (n?=?58) and Dentistry (n?=?57) students aged 19–47 years (median?=?22 years) who participated in two sessions of IPE utilising motivational interviewing to encourage health behaviour change were analysed. Six themes were identified: Concerns about Confidence Resulted in Additional Prior Preparation, Lack of Confidence as an Impediment to Contribution, An Increase in Confidence as a Result of Doing, Recognising the Value of Confidence, Confidence as an Area for Further Development, and Confidence from the Outset. The importance of confidence in impacting students’ ability to actively contribute in IPE should not be underestimated. Educators should seek to maximise student confidence and to create a safe learning environment where further confidence can be built. Further research is needed to determine factors that may boost confidence including the optimal time to incorporate IPE in degree programmes, the best format in which to deliver IPE, and how much IPE to deliver.     

Administrative Effectiveness in Higher Education: Improving Assessment Procedures

Holding higher education personnel accountable for measurable outcomes is a relatively new phenomenon. Assessing the performance of administrators may well provide needed and appropriate information about the functioning of the university, but it may represent high stakes assessment for individuals; that is, measures of administrative effectiveness may be tied to promotion, salary augmentation, contract renewal, or dismissal. Little previous research exists, however, on the assessment of administrators' performance in higher education (Gmelch et al., in press; Seldin, 1988). We develop an evaluation model for assessing and monitoring the effectiveness of academic deans and directors, using generalizability theory (i.e., an approach that focuses on identifying multiple sources of error in performance assessment) as a basis for developing more accurate assessment procedures. We illustrate this approach using faculty and staff assessments of their deans' leadership effectiveness. We also provide guidelines for improving the quality of assessments by adjusting various aspects of the evaluation model.     

Differences in the Prevalence,Severity and Symptom Profiles of Depression in Boys and Adolescents with an Autism Spectrum Disorder versus Normally Developing Controls

The prevalence, severity and symptom profiles for major depressive disorder (MDD) were compared in samples of boys and adolescents with and without an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Self-reports were obtained on the Depression subscale of the Child and Adolescent Symptoms Inventory (CASI-D) with 70 ASD and 50 non-ASD male participants between the ages of 8 and 18 from Queensland, Australia who were matched for age and IQ. Results indicated that the ASD participants had significantly higher total CASI-D scores, a greater proportion of participants who qualified for a diagnosis of MDD, and over 50% higher scores for 8 of the 10 CASI-D symptoms than non-ASD participants. The MDD profiles for the ASD participants were dominated by anhedonia. Issues for assessment and diagnosis of comorbid MDD in young males with an ASD, plus targeted treatment planning that directly addresses their MDD profile, are discussed.     

How is Challenging Behaviour Associated with Depression in Boys with an Autism Spectrum Disorder?

The association between aberrant behaviour and depression was examined in a sample of 150 young males with Autism Spectrum Disorder via parent ratings on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) and the Major Depressive Disorder subscale of the Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory (CASI-4-D). Although several subscales of the ABC were significantly correlated with CASI-4-D scores, only the Irritability subscale was a significant predictor of CASI-4-D, but with different patterns of association across younger (6–12 years) and older (13–18 years) participants. When examined at an individual ABC item level, adolescents’ depression was primarily predicted the presence of temper tantrums that were associated with the introduction of variability or frustration at not getting his or her own way.     

Cross‐informant agreement of children's social‐emotional skills: An investigation of ratings by teachers,parents, and students from a nationally representative sample

This study examines the agreement across informant pairs of teachers, parents, and students regarding the students’ social‐emotional learning (SEL) competencies. Two student subsamples representative of the social skills improvement system (SSIS) SEL edition rating forms national standardization sample were examined: first, 168 students (3rd to 12th grades) with ratings by three informants (a teacher, a parent, and the student him/herself) and a second group of 164 students who had ratings by two raters in a similar role—two parents or two teachers. To assess interrater agreements, two methods were employed: calculation of q correlations among pairs of raters and effect size indices to capture the extant rater pairs differed in their assessments of social‐emotional skills. The empirical results indicated that pairs of different types of informants exhibited greater than chance levels of agreement as indexed by significant interrater correlations; teacher–parent informants showed higher correlations than teacher–student or parent–student pairs across all SEL competency domains assessed, and pairs of similar informants exhibited significantly higher correlations than pairs of dissimilar informants. Study limitations are identified and future research needs outlined.     

Making mathematical meaning through dialogue: ``Once you think of it, the Z minus three seems pretty weird'

In our ongoing qualitative classroom research, we adopt a sociocultural perspective to investigate discourse, and its role in how children and teachers make meaning of mathematics in a fifth grade inquiry classroom. Our theoretical perspective draws primarily on Vygotsky (1978, 1986) and Bakhtin (1981, 1986) each of whom examines how social forms of meaning influence individual cognition. The episode described in this paper examines the process whereby individual and group developmental trajectories are constructed, and allows us to explore the relationship between discourse and knowing. We combine a longitudinal design with a case study approach to focus on the collaborative mathematical problem solving. We use video capture to help us listen to children's discussions in classroom activities and small group interactions. Our analysis of the verbal data recorded on video identifies patterns of interaction, development and change in participants' use of mathematical language and concepts, and their evolving understanding, through discussion and argument, of an algebraic expression constructed by one of the children. The findings lead us to argue for i) a more generative view of the zone of proximal development as a site of learning and of identity formation, ii) an expanded view of the role of the teacher in inquiry classrooms, and iii) an appreciation for the valuable roles difference and resistance play in knowledge building.