ABSTRACT

Interventions to develop functional capacity for children with developmental difficulties have tended to be therapist driven. Such approaches can present difficulties for parents who describe increased stress and feelings of incompetence in a paradigm that can feel imposed. Recent findings have questioned the efficacy of the approach, given a deeper understanding of the impact of social and relational influences on child development. This questioning has prompted the development of programmes where the parent–child relationship is considered a fundamental component of early childhood intervention. The Parent–Child Relationally Informed Early Intervention (PCRI-EI) is such a programme. The current study presents a quasi-experimental assessment of the efficacy of PCRI-EI in achieving functional gains in a sample of 56 children with differing diagnoses presenting to a community early childhood development service. Significant and marked (i.e. large effect size) increases in functional capacity were observed across time. The gains did not differ by diagnosis and parental feedback indicated the improvements were generalised across social, community and educational settings.

摘要

为有发育困难的儿童开发功能能力的干预措施往往是由治疗师驱动的。这种方法可能会给父母带来困难，他们会在一种感觉强加的范式中描述压力增加和无能感。鉴于对社会和关系影响对儿童发展的影响有了更深入的了解，最近的研究结果对该方法的有效性提出了质疑。这种质疑促使了一些项目的发展，在这些项目中，亲子关系被认为是幼儿干预的一个基本组成部分。亲子关系知情早期干预 (PCRI-EI) 就是这样一个项目。目前的研究对 PCRI-EI 在 56 名不同诊断的儿童样本中实现功能增益的效果进行了准实验评估，这些儿童被提交给社区幼儿发展服务。随着时间的推移观察到功能容量的显着和显着（即大效应量）增加。收益并没有因诊断而不同，家长的反馈表明，这些改进在社会、社区和教育环境中得到了普遍体现。