Mary A. Hammond

Treating Children With Early-Onset Conduct Problems: Intervention Outcomes for Parent, Child, and Teacher Training

Families of 159, 4- to 8-year-old children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) were randomly assigned to parent training (PT); parent plus teacher training (PT + TT); child training (CT); child plus teacher training (CT + TT); parent, child, plus teacher training (PT + CT + TT); or a waiting list control. Reports and independent observations were collected at home and school. Following the 6-month intervention, all treatments resulted in significantly fewer conduct problems with mothers, teachers, and peers compared to controls. Childrens negative behavior with fathers was lower in the 3 PT conditions than in control. Children showed more prosocial skills with peers in the CT conditions than in control. All PT conditions resulted in less negative and more positive parenting for mothers and less negative parenting for fathers than in control. Mothers and teachers were also less negative than controls when children received CT. Adding TT to PT or CT improved treatment outcome in terms of teacher behavior management in the classroom and in reports of behavior problems.

Home environment and cognitive development in the first 3 years of life: A collaborative study involving six sites and three ethnic groups in North America.

Attempted to examine the generalizability of environment/development relationships among 3 ethnic groups across the first 3 years of life. Social status did not show a consistent relationship to either quality of home environment or childrens developmental status across the various groups. Results indicated a fairly consistent relationship between HOME scores and childrens developmental status, although there were some ethnic and social status differences in the relationship. Measures of specific aspects of the childs home environment, such as parental responsivity and availability of stimulating play materials, were more strongly related to child developmental status than global measures of environmental quality such as SES. When the childs early developmental status and early home environment were both very low, the likelihood of poor developmental outcomes was markedly increased compared with cases when only one was low.

Maternal depression and its relationship to life stress, perceptions of child behavior problems, parenting behaviors, and child conduct problems

This study examined the relationship of reported maternal depression to prior and current life stressors, and to mother perceptions of child adjustment, parenting behaviors, and child conduct problems. Forty-six depressed mothers and 49 nondepressed mothers and their clinic-referred children (aged 3–8 years) participated. Depressed mothers were more critical than nondrepessed mothers, but the behavior of children of depressed and nondepressed mothers showed no significant differences. Depressed mothers were more likely to have experienced child abuse, spouse abuse, or more negative life events than nondepressed mothers. Maternal reports of stress related to mother characteristics and to negative life events were the most potent variables discriminating depressed from nondepressed mother families.

Prediction of IQ and language skill from perinatal status, child performance, family characteristics, and mother–infant interaction.

193 basically healthy working-class and middle-class mothers and their infants participated in a 4-year longitudinal study which focused on the relative potency of several clusters of variables for predictions of intellectual and language outcome during the preschool years. The major results were: (1) Measures of perinatal or infant physical status were extremely weak predictors of 4-year IQ or language. (2) Assessments of child performance were poor predictors prior to 24 months, but excellent predictors from 24 months on. (3) Assessments of mother-infant interaction and general environmental quality were among the best predictors at each age tested, and were as good as measures of child performance at 24 and 36 months in predicting IQ and language. (4) Measures of the family ecology (level of stress, social support, maternal education) and parent perception of the child, especially when assessed at birth, were strongly related to child IQ and language within a low-education subsample, but not among mothers with more than high school education. Patterns of prediction were similar for 48-month IQ and 36-month receptive language; predictions were notably weaker for 36-month expressive language.

The family's functioning with newly diagnosed breast cancer in the mother: The development of an explanatory model.

Despite the high rates of breast cancer in the child-rearing mother, there is extremely limited research on the effects of the illness on the children, marriage, and parent-child relationship. The current study tested an explanatory model of family functioning with breast cancer based on data obtained from standardized questionnaires from 80 diagnosed mothers and partners with young school-age children. Path analysis results for data obtained from both the mothers and the partners revealed a similar pattern. More frequently experienced illness demands were associated with higher levels of parental depressed mood which negatively affected the marriage. When the marriage was less well adjusted, it negatively affected the familys coping behavior. Household functioning was positively affected by heightened coping activity and by higher levels of marital adjustment. Children functioned better when the non-ill parent more frequently interacted with them and their families coped more frequently with their problems.

Follow-up of children who received the incredible years intervention for oppositional-defiant disorder: Maintenance and prediction of 2-year outcome

This paper presents 2-year follow-up data for a sample of 159, 4- to 7-year-old children with oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) who were randomly assigned to: parent training (PT), parent plus teacher training (PT + TT), child training (CT), child plus teacher training (CT + TT), parent plus child plus teacher training (PT + CT + TT). At the 2-year follow-up, approximately 75% of children were functioning in the normal range according to parent and teacher reports. Twenty-five percent of children were classified as treatment nonresponders at home and/or at school. Teacher training added significantly to long-term school outcomes for children who had pervasive behavior problems. Baseline, post, and 1-year follow-up parenting practices distinguished between home treatment responders and nonresponders (parents of nonresponders were more critical and less positive). For children with baseline pervasive home-school problems, baseline maternal parenting and posttreatment marital discord were associated with poor treatment response at home at the 2-year follow-up. In addition, 80% of pervasive children whose mothers were highly critical immediately posttreatment were classified as school nonresponders at the 2-year follow-up.

Enhancing a Classroom Social Competence and Problem-Solving Curriculum by Offering Parent Training to Families of Moderate- to High-Risk Elementary School Children

The Incredible Years parent and classroom interventions were evaluated for the first time in elementary schools. Culturally diverse, socioeconomically disadvantaged schools were randomly assigned to intervention or control (CON). In intervention schools, all children received a 2-year classroom intervention beginning in kindergarten. In addition, indicated children were randomly assigned to also receive parent training (PT + CR) or only the classroom intervention (CR). PT + CR mothers reported that, following intervention, children showed fewer externalizing problems and more emotion regulation than CR or CON children. Observations showed that child–mother bonding was stronger in the PT + CR condition than in the CON condition, and PT + CR mothers were significantly more supportive and less critical than CR or CON mothers. Teachers reported that PT + CR mothers were significantly more involved in school and that children in the PT + CR and the CR conditions had significantly fewer externalizing problems than in the CON condition.

The relationship between sources and functions of social support and dimensions of child- and parent-related stress

BACKGROUND In this longitudinal study, we examined the relationship between the sources and functions of social support and dimensions of child- and parent-related stress for mothers of young children with mild developmental delays. METHODS Sixty-three mothers completed assessments of stress and support at two time points. RESULTS Multiple regression analyses revealed that parenting support during the early childhood period (i.e. advice on problems specific to their child and assistance with child care responsibilities), irrespective of source, consistently predicted most dimensions of parent stress assessed during the early elementary years and contributed unique variance. General support (i.e. primarily emotional support and validation) from various sources had other, less widespread effects on parental stress. CONCLUSIONS The multidimensional perspective of the construct of social support that emerged suggested mechanisms mediating the relationship between support and stress and provided a framework for intervention.

Promoting the Peer-Related Social Development of Young Children With Mild Developmental Delays: Effectiveness of a Comprehensive Intervention

To address the unusual peer-related social competence difficulties characteristic of young children with mild developmental delays, we conducted a randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive, developmentally oriented, highly individualized intervention extending over a 2-year period. Outcome measures emphasized generalization of peer interactions in unfamiliar playgroups. Results revealed modest effects of the intervention, with children who had lower cognitive levels benefiting most. Intervention effects were best conceptualized as preventative, minimizing the negative features and atypical patterns of childrens social play with peers. Our discussion of future work was focused on alternative implementation models to enhance intervention intensity, inclusion of specific subgroups of children, and direct measurement of children engaging in social tasks.

The influence of early mother—child interaction on preschool cognitive/linguistic outcomes in a high-social-risk group

In this paper, elements of early mother—child interaction are related to later cognitive and linguistic outcomes in a sample of 53 high social risk mothers and their preschoolers. Mother—child interaction was observed longitudinally when the children were 13 and 20 months old. Multiple regression analyses were used to predict cognitive and linguistic outcomes at 3 and 5 years from measures of early mother—child interaction. The results indicated that the quality of early mother—child interaction was a significant predictor of preschool cognitive and linguistic outcomes. This was shown to be true regardless of the contribution of the mothers IQ.