Evaluation of an islandwide screening,assessment and treatment program

This article reports on the effectiveness of the Islandwide Screening, Assessment, and Treatment Program of the Child Development Project in Bermuda. From 1982 to 1984, approximately 1100 families with 2-year-old children were screened for children's cognitive and language delay, for behaviour management problems and for other home characteristics that put children at risk for later school failure. Children who failed the screening and subsequent assessment procedures (of whom random samples received treatment) and samples of others who passed screening and assessment were evaluated from 1984 to 1986 at 4 years of age. This article focuses on the results of the cognitive and language programs; the more problematic behaviour management analyses were reported elsewhere (Miller and Scarr, 1988). The screening procedures and assessment measures developed for this project were themselves evaluated and adjusted to maximize efficiency and costeffectiveness. The screening and assessment procedures proved effective in bringing to the attention of the Child Development Project those families and children who need developmental services, and in not overidentifying normal children as potentially delayed in development. Two kinds of treatment services were compared: The Mother-Child Home Program (MCHP), administered by paraprofessional toy demonstrators, and other interventions tailored by professionals to the language and cognitive problems of the child (called ‘tailored programs’). Children who were not extremely delayed or disturbed were randomly assigned either to the MCHP or to a tailored program. Neither intervention program was preferable to the other. Even though improved, the 4-year-olds identified as developmentally delayed at 24 months still lagged behind children who passed all parts of screening and those who failed screening but passed assessment 2 years earlier. The screening and assessment procedures were very effective in the early identification of children with developmental problems, but the treatment programs failed to bring most children to normal levels of cognitive and language functioning.     

Psychological services for children: using family therapy in the setting of a school psychological service

An attempt is made to evaluate the results of using family therapy in the setting of a school psychological service over a period of about two-and-a-half years. Seventy-two children were involved, referred by teachers, with a variety of behavioural difficulties and learning problems. The difficulties of involving parents in regular clinic sessions for problems which they either saw as school-based or did not see at all are discussed. It is suggested that the technique of family therapy has been insufficiently exploited to help children seen to have 'a special educational need'. This includes children who are developmentally immature, as well as those who show more overt signs of emotional disturbance.     

Age of onset of child maltreatment predicts long-term mental health outcomes

The authors tested the hypothesis that children who are maltreated earlier in life are at greater risk for poor psychological functioning in adulthood than those maltreated later in life. Age of onset of maltreatment was assessed with 3 classifications: (a) continuous (ages 0-11 years); (b) dichotomous (early [ages 0-5 years] vs. later [ages 6-11 years]); and (c) developmental (infancy [ages 0-2 years], preschool [ages 3-5 years], early school age [ages 6-8 years], and school age [ages 9-11 years]). Individuals with documented cases of physical and sexual abuse and neglect prior to age 12 (N=496) were followed up and assessed in adulthood. Results indicated that an earlier onset of maltreatment, measured dichotomously and developmentally, predicted more symptoms of anxiety and depression in adulthood, while controlling for gender, race, current age, and other abuse reports. Later onset of maltreatment, measured continuously or developmentally, was predictive of more behavioral problems in adulthood. Implications for the assessment of maltreated children, the prevention of adult psychopathology, and the classification of age of maltreatment onset are discussed.     

Shadow recognition in human infants

Seventy-five children of five different age groups (ranging from 13–18 to 37–42 months of age) were tested using various nonverbal indices for (a) their ability to respond to shadowed information about objects other than themselves, (b) their ability to manipulate their own shadow, and (c) their ability to recognize their own shadow as evidenced by the explicit use of shadowed information about themselves to respond to themselves. The results show that although infants are aware of shadows and show signs of having mastered the concept of shadow permanence at a fairly early age, compelling evidence of shadow self-recognition is developmentally delayed relative to what has been reported for the onset of mirror self-recognition, with most infants failing to show positive evidence prior to 3 years of age. The results are discussed in light of psychological differences that may exist between shadows and mirrors. Prior involvement and/or tutoring by parents about shadows had no effect on the emergence of shadow recognition.     

The role of early fine and gross motor development on later motor and cognitive ability

The aim of this study was to determine whether information obtained from measures of motor performance taken from birth to 4 years of age predicted motor and cognitive performance of children once they reached school age. Participants included 33 children aged from 6 years to 11 years and 6 months who had been assessed at ages 4 months to 4 years using the ages and stages questionnaires (ASQ: [Squires, J. K., Potter, L., & Bricker, D. (1995). The ages and stages questionnaire users guide. Baltimore: Brookes]). These scores were used to obtain trajectory information consisting of the age of asymptote, maximum or minimum score, and the variance of ASQ scores. At school age, both motor and cognitive ability were assessed using the McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (MAND: [McCarron, L. (1997). McCarron assessment of neuromuscular development: Fine and gross motor abilities (revised ed.). Dallas, TX: Common Market Press.]), and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Version IV (WISC-IV: [Wechsler, D. (2004). WISC-IV integrated technical and interpretive manual. San Antonio, Texas: Harcourt Assessment]). In contrast to previous research, results demonstrated that, although socio-economic status (SES) predicted fine motor performance and three of four cognitive domains at school age, gestational age was not a significant predictor of later development. This may have been due to the low-risk nature of the sample. After controlling for SES, fine motor trajectory information did not account for a significant proportion of the variance in school aged fine motor performance or cognitive performance. The ASQ gross motor trajectory set of predictors accounted for a significant proportion of the variance for cognitive performance once SES was controlled for. Further analysis showed a significant predictive relationship for gross motor trajectory information and the subtests of working memory and processing speed. These results provide evidence for detecting children at risk of developmental delays or disorders with a parent report questionnaire prior to school age. The findings also add to recent investigations into the relationship between early motor development and later cognitive function, and support the need for ongoing research into a potential etiological relationship.     

Effects of television exposure on developmental skills among young children

BackgroundLiterature addressing the effects of television exposure on developmental skills of young children less than 36 months of age is scarce. This study explored how much time young children spend viewing television and investigated its effects on cognitive, language, and motor developmental skills.MethodsData were collected from the Pediatric Clinics at University Medical Center in Southern Taiwan. The participants comprised 75 children who were frequently exposed to television and 75 children who were not or infrequently exposed to television between 15 and 35 months old. The age and sex were matched in the two groups. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development-second edition and Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-second edition were used to identify developmental skills. Independent t-tests, χ² tests, and logistic regression models were conducted.ResultsAmong 75 children who were frequently exposed to television, young children watched a daily average of 67.4 min of television before age 2, which was excessive according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Viewing television increased the risk of delayed cognitive, language, and motor development in children who were frequently exposed to television. Cognitive, language, and motor delays in young children were significantly associated with how much time they spent viewing television. The type of care providers was critical in determining the television-viewing time of children.ConclusionWe recommend that pediatric practitioners explain the impacts of television exposure to parents and caregivers to ensure cognitive, language, and motor development in young children. Advocacy efforts must address the fact that allowing young children to spend excessive time viewing television can be developmentally detrimental.     

Early and persistent motor difficulties in infants at-risk of developing autism spectrum disorder: A prospective study

Analyses were conducted in order to investigate motor development in younger siblings of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Infants at familial risk and low risk of developing ASD were tested longitudinally between the ages of 7 and 36 months. Data were analysed from motor scales on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales at each age point. Significantly lower motor scores in at-risk infants were evident from the age of 7 months compared to the low-risk group. Infants who were later diagnosed with ASD demonstrated significantly poorer Fine Motor skills at 36 months than at-risk infants without any developmental difficulties. In addition, Gross Motor scores were highly correlated across the two measures for low-risk infants and infants who later developed ASD. Early motor difficulties may be an early indicator of a number of neurodevelopmental disorders, including ASD.     

Language development in children at risk for language impairment: cross-population comparisons

At 3 years of age the spontaneous language of 17 typically developing children was compared to two groups of toddlers who were at risk for language delay for very different reasons. One at-risk group, late talkers, appeared normal in all respects except for their delayed language. These 20 children scored at or below the fifteenth percentile for expressive vocabulary on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (Fenson et al., 1993) when originally identified at 20-27 months of age and within the normal range on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (Bayley, 1969). The other group, 21 children with unilateral focal brain injury, suffered localized damage to their brain prenatally, perinatally, or within the first 6 months of life. Results indicated that both of the at-risk groups were still significantly lower in vocabulary diversity and grammar at 3 years of age. There was also significantly greater variability in the at-risk groups than in the control groups, and in the children with focal brain injury than in the late talkers in both areas. The importance of language comprehension to development in this period was supported by two findings. First, children with focal brain injury had significantly lower scores than late talkers on the Index of Productive Syntax, a test of emerging grammar, and had been lower in comprehension on a standardized test of language comprehension a year earlier. Second, late talkers with delay in comprehension as well as production had significantly lower scores on IPSyn than those with normal comprehension, suggesting that they are at greater risk for continued delay. Qualitative analyses indicated that the at-risk groups produced the same kinds of errors, but that late talkers produced a substantially greater proportion of errors in obligatory contexts than did children with focal brain injury.     

Investigation of fine motor performance in children younger than 36-month-old using PDMS-2 and Bayley-III

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study was to investigate the concurrent validity of fine motor (FM) development scores between the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales, Second Edition (PDMS-2), and Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (Bayley-III). Both tests were administered to 223 children aged 13–36 months with suspected developmental delays from a medical centre. Concurrent validity and agreement of FM delay were assessed. The Bayley-III FM scale scores (FMSS) and motor composite quotients were moderately correlated with PDMS-2 FM quotients. The agreement of FM delay between the two instruments was excellent (Kappa coefficient value = .80) in children aged 13–18 months and good in children aged 19–36 months. When using PDMS-2 as the reference standard, Bayley-III (FMSS < 7) identified fewer children aged 19–24 months as delayed but more in children aged 25–36 months as delayed. When adjusting the cut-off point of Bayley-III FMSS to 8 for children aged 19–24 months and to 6 for children aged 25–36 months, the agreement improved between these two instruments. FM delays might be underestimated solely using Bayley-III in children aged 19–24 months. Additional tests, such as PDMS-2 should be considered to avoid delays in accessing early intervention services.     

儿童4岁时自我延迟满足能力对其9岁时学校社会交往能力预期的追踪

采用追踪研究,用实验室实验和情境观察相结合的方法考察了54名儿童4岁时的自我延迟满足能力,5年后结合教师访谈与评定、同伴提名、儿童自评等方法综合评定这些儿童9岁时的学校社会交往能力,探讨儿童4岁时自我延迟满足能力对其9岁时学校社会交往能力的预期作用。结果表明：儿童4岁时的自我延迟满足能力水平可以预期其9岁时的学校社会交往能力水平。4岁时自我延迟满足能力高的儿童在9岁时的学校社会交往能力总体发展也好,其遵守规则与执行任务能力、与教师交往能力、与同伴交往能力、社交情绪发展水平都显著高于那些在4岁时自我延迟满足能力低的儿童;反之则差     

Prediction of fine motor skills of children having language and speech disorders

Relationships between the fine motor skills and linguistic abilities of 37 developmentally delayed children, ages 5 to 9 yr., were studied using a battery of expressive and receptive language tests, a measure of fine motor performance, a dichotic listening test, and individual intelligence tests. While IQs and MAs were not related to fine motor skills, both expressive and receptive language test scores showed moderate to moderately high correlations, the highest single relationship being the Test for the Auditory Comprehension of Language. In concert with CAs, a dichotic right-ear test score, the Auditory Comprehension Test, predicted fine motor-skill indices substantially; R = .80. Strong relationships appear between linguistic and fine motor skills in an age group not previously investigated and at higher levels than reported in studies of infants and very young children. Dichotic results were abnormal in a majority of the children.     

Selective deficit in spatial location memory in extremely low birth weight children at age six: The PETIT Study

Spatial location memory has rarely been assessed in young children due to a scarcity of developmentally appropriate tests. This study sought to compare nonverbal learning and recall in children born extremely low birth weight (ELBW; <1000 g) and less than 33 gestational weeks (GW) with term-born children at early school age using a recently developed and adapted test. We administered a modification of the Hopkins Board to 210 children at age six; 84 born ELBW (35 born < 26 GW; 49 born 26–33 GW) and 126 term-born. Six measures were obtained: naming, trials-to-criterion, errors-to-criterion, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention. After age correction, ELBW children had worse general cognition, item naming, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention than term-born children. Delayed item recall and percent retention performances of ELBW children remained worse after correction for general cognition. ELBW groups (< 26 GW and 26–33 GW) groups performed worse than term-born children in naming and delayed item recall with chronological age as covariate. Those born before 26 GW, but not 26–33 GW, performed worse than term-born children in delayed location recall and percent retention. Differences remained significant after controlling for gender, maternal education, and delivery type. All three groups' performance declined from final learning trial to delayed location recall, with a decline greater for less than 26 GW than term-born children. Extreme prematurity (< 26 GW) and ELBW are significant risk factors for spatial location memory deficit. The modified Hopkins Board discriminated high-risk preterm and term-born children at early school age and appears to be a useful test to measure this rarely studied cognitive capacity.     

Children do not recalibrate motor‐sensory temporal order after exposure to delayed sensory feedback

Prolonged adaptation to delayed sensory feedback to a simple motor act (such as pressing a key) causes recalibration of sensory‐motor synchronization, so instantaneous feedback appears to precede the motor act that caused it (Stetson, Cui, Montague & Eagleman, 2006). We investigated whether similar recalibration occurs in school‐age children. Although plasticity may be expected to be even greater in children than in adults, we found no evidence of recalibration in children aged 8–11 years. Subjects adapted to delayed feedback for 100 trials, intermittently pressing a key that caused a tone to sound after a 200 ms delay. During the test phase, subjects responded to a visual cue by pressing a key, which triggered a tone to be played at variable intervals before or after the keypress. Subjects judged whether the tone preceded or followed the keypress, yielding psychometric functions estimating the delay when they perceived the tone to be synchronous with the action. The psychometric functions also gave an estimate of the precision of the temporal order judgment. In agreement with previous studies, adaptation caused a shift in perceived synchrony in adults, so the keypress appeared to trail behind the auditory feedback, implying sensory‐motor recalibration. However, school children of 8 to 11 years showed no measureable adaptation of perceived simultaneity, even after adaptation with 500 ms lags. Importantly, precision in the simultaneity task also improved with age, and this developmental trend correlated strongly with the magnitude of recalibration. This suggests that lack of recalibration of sensory‐motor simultaneity after adaptation in school‐age children is related to their poor precision in temporal order judgments. To test this idea we measured recalibration in adult subjects with auditory noise added to the stimuli (which hampered temporal precision). Under these conditions, recalibration was greatly reduced, with the magnitude of recalibration strongly correlating with temporal precision.     

Comparability of the Vineland Social Maturity Scale and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale--survey form with infants evaluated for developmental delay.

The Vineland Social Maturity Scale and its revision, the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale-Survey Form, were evaluated with infants referred for suspected developmental delay. Since the latter is being used more often by psychologists in evaluation and placement of children in the age group of birth to two years, comparative studies must ensure appropriate placement of children observed to have developmental delays. The present study indicated significantly higher over-all adaptive functioning on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale-Survey Form for 33 black and 11 white infants of mean age 12 mo. than on the original Vineland scales. Substituting the Survey Form for the original Vineland scales when evaluating developmentally delayed infants is questionable. These results are also noteworthy in that children whose Vineland Social Maturity scaled scores make them eligible for special services would be excluded if the revised form were used in the evaluation process.     

The modification of intelligence through early experience

Infants judged to be at risk for subnormal intellectual growth were randomly assigned to an Experimental (N = 27) or a Control (N = 25) group. Infants in both groups received medical care and dietary supplements; their families received social work services on a request basis. Experimental children participated in an educational daycare program beginning before the third month of life. The daycare program was composed, in part, of curriculum activities designed to stimulate intellectual growth. Between 6 and 36 months of age, Experimental children maintained normal intellectual growth; Control children declined in IQ beginning between 12 and 18 months of age and remained significantly lower than Experimental children at 24 and 36 months. The mother-child IQ correlation for Control dyads was 43; for Experimental dyads the correlation was ?.05. These two types of evidence are interpreted as support for the importance of early environments in the development of intelligence.     

EARLY REGULATION IN CHILDREN WHO ARE LATER DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER. A LONGITUDINAL STUDY WITHIN THE DANISH NATIONAL BIRTH COHORT

Studies have shown that children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in their first years of life might show symptoms in main developmental areas and that these signs might be sensed by the parents. The present study investigated in a large birth cohort if children later diagnosed with ASD had deviations at 6 and 18 months in areas such as the ability to self‐regulate emotions, feeding, and sleeping. The study was based on prospective information collected from 76,322 mothers who participated in the Danish National Birth Cohort. When the children reached an average age of 11 years, 973 children with ASD and a control group of 300 children with intellectual disability (IDnoASD) were identified via Danish health registries. Associations were found between short periods of breast‐feeding and the children later diagnosed with ASD and IDnoASD as well as associations at 18 months to deviations in regulation of emotions and activity. The similarities in these associations emphasize how difficult it is to distinguish between diagnoses early in life.     

Breaking the cycle of violence: an examination of factors relevant to treatment follow-through

To examine differences between a group of battered mothers who followed through with treatment recommended for their children and those who did not, 10 women from each of two comparable women's shelters who followed through with recommended therapy for their children were compared with 10 women from each shelter who did not follow through, in regard to age, years of education, job history, economic status, and prior exposure to therapy. Analysis indicated that women who followed through had significantly more years of education than those women who did not follow-through. Furthermore, women who followed-through were significantly more likely to have had prior experience in counseling or therapy as were their mates. Implications, including education of mothers about the emotional needs of their children by peers, staff, or liaison workers from mental health agencies as a positive means of curtailing transmission of violent patterns from parents to children, are discussed.     

Executive function in children with high and low attentional skills: Correspondences between behavioural and cognitive profiles

Cognitive performance was compared between two groups of typically developing children, who had been observed and rated as differing significantly in their attentional skills at school. The participants were 24 8‐ and 9‐year‐old children scoring poorly relative to peers, on a classroom observation scale and teacher rating scale for attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity [low‐attentional skills (LAS) group] and 24 sex‐ and age‐matched children scoring at a high level compared to peers [high‐attentional skills (HAS) group]. The two groups were compared on a series of cognitive tasks to assess executive function (EF). The LAS group performed within the typical range yet at a significantly lower level than the HAS group on the majority of the EF tasks administered, namely working memory and inhibition measures, even though there were no significant differences between the groups on a measure of intellectual ability. Working memory measures followed by measures of inhibition emerged as the best predictors of group membership. These findings provide empirical evidence that there are individual differences in attentional skills. Specifically, that there is a relationship between behavioural inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity and cognitive performance on working memory and inhibitory control tasks.     

Why early linguistic milestones are delayed in children with Williams syndrome: late onset of hand banging as a possible rate–limiting constraint on the emergence of canonical babbling

In the present study, eight children with Williams syndrome were observed every 2 weeks between 6 months and 30 months of age when interacting with their mothers. When the collected data were transcribed in terms of both linguistic and motor activities, overall delay was found in terms of the onset of canonical babbling, first words, as well as various motor milestones in every child. The degree to which acquisition of each of the milestones was delayed was individually variable. Nevertheless, the onset of hand banging was found to be an indicator that predicted the onset of canonical babbling consistently among the children. Once canonical babbling was produced, moreover, the onset of first words was recorded during a following 2 to 3 month period. These findings appear to indicate the possibility that development of the motor ability to perform such rhythmic motor activity as hand banging acted as a control parameter for production of canonical syllables in the children.     

Spontaneous private speech and performance on a delayed match-to-sample task

Spontaneous private speech samples were obtained from 65 kindergarten children (mean age 70.3 months) from one suburban (n = 36) and one city (n = 29) school as they worked alone on a delayed match-to-sample (DMS) task with three levels of difficulty (2, 10, and 30 sec delays). As expected increases in DMS delay intervals produced decreased performance and increases in private speech. The expected increased positive relationship between task relevant private speech and performance for longer delays was found in city children but not suburban children. Since mean IQ scores were significantly different for the two groups this variable was further examined in post hoc analyses and discussed along with socio-economic status as possible explanations for the observed school-sample differences. A within-subject comparison for all children showed the percentage of speaking trials correct at 30-sec delay to be significantly greater than the percentage of nonspeaking trials correct. The effect of one experimenter modeled trial on a subsequent 10 trials at 30-sec delay was to increase speech and performance and to show a stronger relationship between speech and performance than for premodeling trials. These exploratory findings with a relatively simple two color matching task suggest further explorations of spontaneous private speech as a way of studying internalization of self regulatory cognitive strategies.