Lucinda P. Bernheimer

Weaving Interventions into the Fabric of Everyday Life: An Approach to Family Assessment.

In response to legislative mandates, the focus in early childhood special education has shifted from the child to the child in the context of the family. This shift has major implications for assessment as well as for intervention. In this article we describe an ecocultural approach for assessing families of young children with developmental problems. It is an approach that has grown out of empirical work and that we believe has clinical utility in designing interventions for young children and their families.

Ecocultural Theory as a Context for the Individual Family Service Plan

Although PL 99-457 mandates a family focus to early intervention, there is a limited theoretical and empirical base to guide implementation of the new law. Ecocultural theory, which considers the sociocultural environment of the child and family, is proposed as a framework for designing intervention. To illustrate this theory, case material is selected from two ongoing longitudinal studies of families with young children with developmental delays, etiologies unknown or uncertain. Several aspects of ecocultural theory are used to illustrate its usefulness for intervention: a social constructivist perspective; the interconnected and hierarchical nature of the ecocultural niche; and the use of family-level outcomes as well as individual child outcomes. Implications for developing Individual Family Service Plans are discussed.

Sustainability of Daily Routines as a Family Outcome

A mother of a nine-year-old boy says . . . . “Monday, I do carpool duty and so I have to drive into Burbank. I pick up my [age 11] son at 1:00, then we dash over to Burbank and pick up 6 kids and they all get off at different times. Even on days that it’s not my carpool day, I still have an hour and fifteen minutes drive to pick up my son. Some days it’s really hectic. There are days when I have a night class, so we stop and get dinner on the way home, but that’s only one day a week. Then, we do homework, I get the kids bathed and in bed. And we found a new, more appropriate school for [my daughter]. We have an impossible schedule. We had to reshuffle our whole lives. We had to give up a lot to have her go to this school, but I felt like for years we’d given up so much to take care of my son’s therapy and she [the older sister] was miserable. I thought we’ve got to try something else. Every once in a while, I get really tired of the 2 hour drive, and then my daughter will say ‘Please, I’ll do anything, don’t pull me from the school. I’ve never been happier in my life.’ Well, as a result, I get up at 4:30 in the morning, and then I don’t get to bed until after midnight. We probably have the worst life of all the parents in your study. We are going to die young. As far as sleep, we don’t sleep. We exist. I’m lucky, because I’m kind of a night person, but we tend to get sick easily.”

Children with Developmental Delays Twenty Years Later: Where Are They? How Are They?.

Data from parents and young adults were collected as part of a 20-year follow-up of children with developmental delays who had been identified at age 3 years. The young adults and their parents provided information through questionnaires and personal interviews. Findings documented a broad range of outcomes, with some young adults leading independent and productive lives, whereas the majority were un- or underemployed, living with and financially dependent upon their families, and socially isolated. Three types of parent-young adult relationships were identified. For both parents and young adults, IQ was significantly and negatively related to perceived life satisfaction.

Impacts of Children with Troubles on Working Poor Families: Mixed-Method and Experimental Evidence.

Mixed-method and experimental data on working poor families and children with troubles participating in the New Hope anti-poverty experimental initiative in Milwaukee are described. Sixty percent of these families had at least one child who had significant problems (learning, school achievement and/or behavior, home behavior, retardation, other disabilities). Control group families with children who had troubles had more difficulties in sustaining their family routine than did New Hope experimental families. In the context of the many other challenges these parents face, adaptation to children with troubles does not stand out as sharply compared to middle-class European American families. There is less family adaptation specifically due to, or in response to, the troubled child, and more adaptation to the struggles of making ends meet.

Behavior Sampling and Ethnography: Complementary Methods for Understanding Home-School Connections among Latino Immigrant Families

Both ethnography and experience-sampling methods (ESMs) are effective for assessing childrens home activities. The authors combined them to examine home activities that were school-like, complementary to school, or unrelated to school. The activities were then related to childrens school achievement in a sample of low-income Latino immigrant families and their tento eleven-year-old children at risk for low school achievement. Children reported a wide variety of types of activities in their evening routines. Children with higher school achievement were engaged in chores; homework; monitored outside activities; family social activities and hobbies; and self-directed, goal-oriented activities. Children with lower levels of school achievement tended to be engaged in more television, video games, peer and solitary play, and resting. ESMs are a valuable and effective complement to ethnographic and school achievement data in the study of home activities and home-school relationships.

From Research to Practice Support for Developmental Delay as a Preschool Category of Exceptionality

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act introduces a new discretionary category of preschool eligibility: “developmental delay.” A recent DEC position paper supports the use of this new category but raises concerns about the transition from the broad category of developmental delay instead of eligibility categories commonly used in elementary school. Investigators at UCLA have been following two cohorts of young children with developmental delays and their families since 1979. Findings from these longitudinal studies relate directly to the concerns raised in the DEC document and support the introduction of the new category of eligibility.

Assessing children's competence: Mothers' and teachers' ratings of competent behavior.

The purposes of this study were to test the replicability of the factor structure of the Health Resources Inventory (HRI) for teachers, to describe the factor organization of the HRI when used with parents, and to assess the strengh of agreement between parents «and teachers» views of childrens competence

Young Children with Developmental Delays as Young Adults: Predicting Developmental and Personal-Social Outcomes.

We report on a 20-year follow-up of 30 children with developmental delays identified at age 3. Our purpose was to assess the relationship of early indicators of delay to cognitive and personal-social status in young adulthood. Predictors were Developmental and Personal-Social factors derived from standardized tests and parent questionnaires administered when the children were 3 and 6 to 7. Outcome measures in young adulthood included standardized and project-developed questionnaires and interviews with young adults and parents. Findings indicate that prediction varies relative to the outcome assessed. Developmental status at 6 to 7 was a strong predictor of developmental status in young adulthood. However, personal-social outcomes were generally not predicted by Personal-Social factors in the early years.

Behaviour and adjustment problems of young developmentally delayed children

ABSTRACT As part of an ongoing longitudinal study of developmental delay (DD), 35 six‐year‐old children with delays of unknown aetiology were assessed with measures of cognitive, language and educational competence. Their parents provided detailed information about their self‐help and personal‐social competencies, behaviour problems and temperament. As a group, the DD children evidenced high rates of behaviour problems, but there was considerable within‐group variability in intensity and pattern of problems. Low relationships were found between the intensity of behaviour problems and childrens chronological age (CA), IQ, language level and self‐help competencies. The child variable most strongly associated with behaviour problems was temperament, or behavioural style.