Parent, Teacher and Observational Reports of Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Young Autistic Children

Emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs) frequently occur in young autistic children. Discrepancies between parents and other informants are common but can lead to uncertainty in formulation, diagnosis and care planning. This study aimed to explore child and informant characteristics are associated with reported child EBPs across settings. Participants were 83 4–8-year-old autistic children and their parents and teachers in the Autism Spectrum Treatment and Resilience (ASTAR) study. Questionnaires of child EBPs were completed by parents and teachers, and self-reported parenting stress and wellbeing measures were obtained. An observation of parent–child/researcher-child interaction was also completed. Parents reported more EBPs than teachers and parent-teacher agreement was low, particularly for emotional problems. Greater parenting stress and being verbal was associated with more parent- but not teacher-reported EBPs. More observed behaviors that challenge were displayed by minimally verbal children. More parenting stress could be associated with the presence of more EBPs in the home; alternatively, parenting stress may confound reports. It is essential for assessments of EBPs in autistic children to take a multi-informant approach. Better understanding of the associations between informant characteristics and informant discrepancies of EBPs is needed.

Big Things Often Have Small Beginnings: A Review on the Development, Use and Value of Small and Big Corpora for Flemish Sign Language Linguistic Research

In 1990, Vermeerbergen started the first larger-scale corpus study with (semi)spontaneous language data from adult signers on the morpho-syntactic aspects of Flemish Sign Language (VGT). After this, a number of lexicographic projects, including the collection of a 90-h corpus, led to the launch of the first online bilingual Dutch/VGT—VGT/Dutch dictionary in 2004. Since then, researchers have developed several corpora of variable sizes, with the greatest realization being the VGT Corpus. The main focus of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand the run-up to, the development and the use of the VGT Corpus will be discussed, while on the other hand smaller specific research corpora will be highlighted such as the corpus on early parent-child interaction and the multifocal eye-tracking corpus. The current chapter will discuss the research and community value of the corpora and future directions. Finally, it will elaborate on the need for corpus research, the associated advantages and disadvantages, and the obstacles faced in smaller deaf communities.

How Parents Perceive the Potential Risk of a Child-Dog Interaction

Dog attacks on children are a widespread problem, which can occur when parents fail to realise a potentially dangerous interaction between a dog and a child. The aim of the study was to evaluate the ability of parents to identify dangerous situations from several everyday child–dog interactions and to determine whether the participants connected these situations to a particular breed of dog. Five sets of photographs depicting potentially dangerous interactions from everyday situations between children and three dogs (one of each breed) were presented via an online survey to parents of children no more than 6 years old. Data from 207 respondents were analysed using proc GLIMMIX in SAS program, version 9.3. The probability of risk assessment varied according to dog breed (p < 0.001) as well as to the depicted situation (p < 0.001). Results indicated that Labrador Retriever was considered the least likely of the three dogs to be involved in a dangerous dog-child interaction (with 49% predicting a dangerous interaction), followed by Parson Russell Terrier (63.2%) and American Pit Bull Terrier (65%). Participants considered one particular dog-child interaction named ‘touching a bowl’ a dangerous interaction at a high rate (77.9%) when compared with the other presented situations, which were assessed as dangerous at rates of 48.4% to 56.5%. The breed of dog seems to be an influential factor when assessing a potentially dangerous outcome from a dog-child interaction. Contrary to our hypothesis, interactions involving the small dog (Russell Terrier) were rated more critically, similarly to those of the Pit Bull Terrier. These results suggest that even popular family dog breeds, such as Labrador Retrievers, should be treated with more caution.

Maternal Parenting Stress, Mother-Child Interaction Activities, Maternal Parenting Behaviors, and Preschoolers’ School Readiness in Early Childhood: Longitudinal Effects on Children’s Academic Ability at School Entry

Objectives: The main purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal effects of maternal parenting stress, mother-child interaction activities, maternal parenting behaviors, and preschoolers' school readiness on children's academic ability at school entry in early childhood.Methods: This study used data from the seventh (T1) and eighth (T2) wave (2014ㅡ2015) of the Panel Study on Korean Children. The participants of this study were 942 between 6 and 7-year-old children and their mothers. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling.Results: First, the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children's academic ability at school admission was sequentially mediated by mother-child interaction activities and preschoolers' school readiness. The higher the maternal parenting stress, the lower the mother-child interaction activities, and the lower the mother-child interaction activities, the lower the degree of preschoolers' school readiness. The poor degree of preschoolers' school readiness was related to the children's low academic ability at school entry. Second, the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children's academic ability at school entry was sequentially mediated by parenting behaviors and preschoolers' school readiness. The higher the maternal parenting stress, the less positive maternal parenting behaviors were, and the less positive maternal parenting behaviors were, the lower the level of preschoolers' school readiness, and the lower the children's academic performance at school entry.Conclusion: This study indicated that maternal parenting stress, mother-child interaction activities, maternal parenting behaviors, and preschoolers' school readiness in early childhood influenced firstgrade children's academic performance.

Nastoletnia krucjata przeciwko dorosłym i kulturze popularnej w „Los poseídos de Luna Picante” Martína Sancii

The paper focuses on an Argentinian book for children by Martín Sancia titled Los poseídos de Luna Picante [The Possessed from Pungent Moon] from 2014. The research problem revolves around the expectations about childhood and youth literature that the analysed text appears to challenge. Tools employed in this work come primarily from cognitive poetics. The study explores the ways in which the text touches upon the place of children’s discourse in relation to the adults’ one within the system. Among these the most engaging seem to be an image of the child as an abject, metafictional techniques, the gothic, and the gore effect. In its conclusions, the study shows that all the strategies used in the analysed texts aim to blur the boundaries between child and adult discourses and, consequently, provide a space for a non-disempowering author–reader/adult–child interaction.

A Study on Teacher-Child Interaction from the Perspective of Children

Children’s perspective is based on their own cognitive level in understanding objective things. The study of children’s perspective is a bottom-up research process under the premise of having a full respect for a child’s view. With the change of views about children in recent years, “children’s perspective” has become a new research direction. At the same time, teacher-child interaction, as an important means of evaluating the quality of kindergarten education, requires a bottom-up perspective from children. This study hopes to understand children’s emotional experience in the process of teacher-child interaction as well as their understanding and evaluation of their own experience by exploring their perspectives on the interaction, so as to better improve the quality of teacher-child interaction in kindergarten.

Time-Out with Young Children: A Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) Practitioner Review

Time-out is a component of many evidence-based parent training programmes for the treatment of childhood conduct problems. Existing comprehensive reviews suggest that time-out is both safe and effective when used predictably, infrequently, calmly and as one component of a collection of parenting strategies—i.e., when utilised in the manner advocated by most parent training programmes. However, this research evidence has been largely oriented towards the academic community and is often in conflict with the widespread misinformation about time-out within communities of parents, and within groups of treatment practitioners. This dissonance has the potential to undermine the dissemination and implementation of an effective suite of treatments for common and disabling childhood conditions. The parent-practitioner relationship is integral to the success of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), an evidence-based treatment which involves live coaching of parent(s) with their young child(ren). Yet this relationship, and practitioner perspectives, attitudes and values as they relate to time-out, are often overlooked. This practitioner review explores the dynamics of the parent-practitioner relationship as they apply to the teaching and coaching of time-out to parents. It also acknowledges factors within the clinical setting that impact on time-out’s use, such as the views of administrators and professional colleagues. The paper is oriented toward practitioners of PCIT but is of relevance to all providers of parent training interventions for young children.

The attachment antecedents of shame: mothers’ representations of the shamed self

This study was designed to explore the intergenerational roots of shame in the context of attachment. The sample comprised sixty-nine mothers with four- and five-year-old children (54 girls, M = 58 months) drawn from a study of parenting risk. The mothers (age range 25–48) were culturally diverse, educated, partnered, and middle to upper-middle class. Mothers completed the Adult Attachment Projective (AAP) (George & West, 2012) and children completed the Attachment Doll Play Assessment (ADPA) (Solomon et al., 1995). The dyad was also videotaped interacting with a realistic baby doll and maternal behaviour was rated using Britner et al.’s (2005) maternal scales. The authors developed a coding system to capture three shame-related variables from mothers’ narratives of parent–child conflict in response to one of the AAP stimuli (Child in Corner): 1) evidence of shame; 2) parental socialisation actions; and 3) parental efforts to regulate the child’s shame. Results showed that three-quarters of mothers referred to implicit or explicit shame, but socialisation depicting shame was unrelated to child attachment security. Most mothers described harsh socialisation practices and incomplete efforts to repair the child’s shame. Only mothers of securely attached children described socialisation actions to emotionally repair the relationship. The shame measures were partially validated with the maternal parent–child interaction observation rating variables. The utility and limitations of the new measures are discussed in terms of their potential usefulness to research, clinical assessment, and treatment.