A pilot study of early childhood mental health consultation for children with behavioral problems in preschool
Section snippets
Recruitment of preschool programs
Preschools were recruited based on willingness to participate actively in required program components. These included: (1) conducting center-wide parent and staff surveys; (2) participating in education/training sessions for staff and parents; (3) training staff in conducting standardized assessment of children's behavior twice a year; (4) allowing the Child Development Advisor to observe classrooms and provide individual services to children, parents, and teachers on site; and (5) providing
Changes in child behavior ratings
This analysis includes 37 intervention children and 49 control children with complete pre- and post-teacher behavioral ratings (although one intervention child had missing data on the aggressive behavior scale at follow-up). Separate Two (time) by Two (intervention vs. control) Repeated Measures ANOVA's (using SPSS 14.0 statistical software) were conducted to examine change in aggressive, maladaptive, and adaptive behavior scores as rated by the teacher (see Table 3). In terms of aggressive
Discussion
Preschool children's behavioral difficulties have received increasing attention in recent years. High rates of prevalence have been documented across both Head Start and community child care programs (Kupersmidt et al., 2000, Qi and Kaiser, 2003), along with rates of preschool expulsion and suspension that far exceed those for K-12 school years (Gilliam, 2005). Simultaneously, it has been recognized that social skills and emotional regulation are key ingredients of school readiness skills, and
Practical implications
Our data provide additional support for the efficacy of early childhood mental health consultation programs to address children's problem behavior in child care settings. Further, our study, in combination with prior studies, seems to suggest that program-focused versus child-focused models may have differential outcomes. Programs that provide more emphasis on teacher skill development and teachers as the primary change agent (Williford & Shelton, 2008) may demonstrate more improvement in
Acknowledgements
This study and the intervention services were funded by The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts and the United Way of Central Massachusetts. We would like to thank Lynn Hennigan, LICSW, Project Coordinator for Community Healthlink, Youth and Family Services, the 50 members of the Together for Kids Coalition, the dedicated Child Development Advisors, and the staff and families of the following Worcester-area child care programs: Rainbow Child Development Center, Worcester Community Action
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