Increasing Self‐Selection and Self‐Location of Words by Mildly Retarded Children during Story Writing

Sentence‐writing behaviour, including use of words self‐selected and self‐located independently of teacher modelling, was established with eight mildly retarded children in a special class. The procedure comprised three components: 1) provision of word lists; 2) praise for self‐selecting and self‐locating words from supplied word lists; and 3) response cost for responses dependent on teacher modelling. The latter were termed Words Shown and Words Told, while self‐selected and self‐located responses were termed Words Found. In a sequential component design it was found that after baseline, supplying instructions and a word list (Phase 2) and continuing the use of word‐lists together with praise for self‐managed behaviour (Phase 3) decreased the frequency of Words Told, but Words Found and Words Shown were not appreciably affected. Words Shown decreased with the introduction of response cost for responses dependent on teacher modelling (Phase 4). Also, in Phase 4 Words Found increased substantially above levels in all previous phases and Words Shown decreased to zero frequency. These changes within sentence‐writing behaviour are discussed in terms of the need for accurate discrimination of and selective attention to positive and negative instances in the acquisition of self‐regulation.     

A small-scale randomized efficacy trial of Carescapes: Enhancing children’s social development in child care homes

The quality of the child care environment and caregiver practices can potentially have significant, lasting impact on children’s social development. This study involves the development and a small-scale efficacy trial of the Carescapes program, a video-based training program that focuses on promoting positive social development in young children attending family child care. Fifty-seven caregivers who provided child care in their homes were randomly assigned to immediate intervention or waitlist control groups. Random coefficients analyses showed significant increased use of effective behavior management practices and decreased overall children’s problem behavior for the intervention group. A mediation model demonstrated that increases in effective behavior management practices were associated with decreases in problem behavior. A medium intervention effect was found for caregiver’s monitoring and a small effect for use of positive attention. These effects declined 5 months following the intervention. Implications for future efficacy and effectiveness studies in family child care settings that involve strategies to facilitate maintenance are discussed.     

Mother and infant talk about mental states relates to desire language and emotion understanding

This study assessed the relation between mother mental state language and child desire language and emotion understanding in 15-24-month-olds. At both time points, mothers described pictures to their infants and mother talk was coded for mental and nonmental state language. Children were administered 2 emotion understanding tasks and their mental and nonmental state vocabulary levels were obtained via parental report. The results demonstrated that mother use of desire language with 15-month-old children uniquely predicted a child's later mental state language and emotion task performance, even after accounting for potentially confounding variables. In addition, mothers' tendency to refer to the child's over others' desires was the more consistent correlate of mental state language and emotion understanding.