Training In Young Children Research Articles

Assessing physiological responses to training in young children.

Assessing physiological responses to training in young children.

Kinaesthetic Acuity in Preprimary Children at Risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder

ABSTRACTThe current study examined kinaesthetic acuity and Performance IQ in preprimary children (aged 4-5 years) at risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Individual assessment of 317 children over four sessions at their pre-primary centre identified 31 children at risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder. These children were matched with 31 control children on age, gender, and Verbal IQ. The two groups were assessed using three Performance IQ subtests of the WPPSI-R and the Kinaesthetic Acuity Test (KAT, Livesey & Parkes, 1995). The results indicate that kinaesthetic acuity and Performance IQ subtests significantly differentiate children at risk of DCD from control children. These results suggest a need to assess the efficacy of kinaesthetic training in young children at risk of DCD. Furthermore, psychologists may be able to assist in the early detection of children at-risk of DCD via the WPPSI-R assessment results routinely obtained for young children.

Early and Intensive Treadmill Locomotor Training for Young Children with Cerebral Palsy

This feasibility study describes the development and application of a new intensive treadmill locomotor training program for young children with cerebral palsy (CP). The premise is that early, intensive, and task-specific locomotor training initiated even before independent walking is attained will promote improved locomotor skills. Four children, three girls and one boy, with spastic cerebral palsy (age range: 1.7–2.3 years) received a combination of conventional therapy and treadmill training four times per week for four months. To enable treadmill locomotor training, a customized treadmill capable of very low speeds and with several safety features, including a harness that could also be used for weight support, was custom built. Change in locomotor performance was evaluated with three clinical measures: the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM), a gait videographic test and the Supported Walker Ambulation Performance Scale (SWAPS). In addition, a full laboratory gait analysis was performed at baseline and at two and four months posttherapy. The results confirm the feasibility of early and intensive treadmill locomotor training in young children with CP even before independent walking is attained. Gait spatiotemporal parameters and the GMFM total score did not reveal changes observed in the video records by trained observers while laboratory gait evaluations were confounded by the poor locomotor capacity, especially at baseline. The GMFM D and E subscore and the SWAPS, were more sensitive to changes in the supported locomotor status and may be more appropriate than the GMFM total score for future studies requiring the matching of children who are nonindependent walkers. The results of this study pave the way for additional work on the SWAPS or for future efficacy trials using treadmills.

Supported Walker Ambulation Performance Scale (SWAPS)

In a recent study on gait training in young children with disabilities, gait velocity and the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM) failed to identify changes in locomotor status that could be discerned by trained observers from video records. This led to the development of a clinical measure that would be sensitive to changes in the period preceding the onset of independent gait. The first part of this paper describes the development of the SWAPS (Supported Walker Ambulation Performance Scale), and the second part presents the results from a preliminary testing of its psychometric properties. Three experts were asked to determine the criteria they would use to determine changes in the walking performance of nine children with spastic cerebral palsy. After examining two series of video records taken at four-month intervals, the SWAPS was proposed. It consists of four dimensions: A) support, B) posture, C) quality of steps, and D) quantity of steps. These four dimensions are weighted so that support is worth 40% and the other three dimensions 20% each of the total score (100%). Each dimension is scored on a four-point Likert scale. The interrater reliability of the SWAPS was studied by having four physiotherapists score video records of the walking performance of the nine children. The intraclass correlation coefficient calculated for the total SWAPS score was 0.95, indicating a high-interrater reproducibility. Construct validity was also studied by correlating the SWAPS scores to the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM). A Spearman p of 0.68 computed between the SWAPS and GMFM scores indicates a good relationship between the performance measured by the two scales. There are limitations to the present study: the development of the scale was made a posteriori using data recorded before its development in a small convenience sample, and the same sample of subjects was used for both the development and the testing of the scale. Despite these limitations, the present results are encouraging, and valuable information can be drawn from this preliminary study. Suggestions to improve the scale in future investigations are discussed.

Lexical Comprehension in Young Children With Developmental Delays

Lexical comprehension skills were examined in 20 young children (aged 28–45 months) with developmental delays (DD) and 20 children (aged 19–34 months) with normal development (ND). Each was assigned to either a story-like script condition or a simple ostensive labeling condition in which the names of three novel object and action items were presented over two experimental sessions. During the experimental sessions, receptive knowledge of the lexical items was assessed through a series of target and generalization probes. Results indicated that all children, irrespective of group status, acquired more lexical concepts in the ostensive labeling condition than in the story narrative condition. Overall, both groups acquired more object than action words, although subjects with ND comprehended more action words than subjects with DD. More target than generalization items were also comprehended by both groups. It is concluded that young children’s comprehension of new lexical concepts is facilitated more by a context in which simple ostensive labels accompany the presentation of specific objects and actions than one in which objects and actions are surrounded by thematic and event-related information. Various clinical applications focusing on the lexical training of young children with DD are discussed.

Response to Oosterhuis: Empirically Justified Uses of Spanking: Toward a Discriminating View of Corporal Punishment

This article makes a case for discriminating appropriate from inappropriate corporal punishment utilizing empirical research and the larger scriptural context of the rod passages in Proverbs. Three lines of research have indicated that some spanking is beneficial in certain contexts: the treatment of autistic children, the behavioral training of young children by parents, and the reduction of recurrent misbehavior in toddlers. Although the use of corporal punishment should be reduced, spanking as a backup for time-out and reasoning appears to be beneficial for children from 2 to 6 years of age.

Graphic Symbol and Speech Training of Young Children With Down Syndrome: Some Preliminary Findings

This study examined the effects of five treatment conditions on the abilities of 11 preschool children with Down Syndrome to learn and use five new words/graphic symbols (Rebus or modified Bliss symbols). Treatment conditions included Speech and Language Training Only, Nonspeech Communication Training Only (Rebus or Bliss) and Speech and Language Training Combined with Nonspeech Communication Training (Rebus or Bliss). Subjects were seen for 12 individual sessions, the focus of which was training comprehension and spontaneous expressive use of the wordsl symbols. Pre- and post-treatment measures were obtained for training and nontraining words on the comprehension and expression tasks. Although no significant overall treatment effect was found for either task when pre-and post-treatment comparisons were made, there was a significant increase in comprehension scores for the subjects as a group. Analyses of the data from the treatment sessions revealed a significant decrease in the number of prompts required for expressive use of the wordl/symbols for subjects in the Speech and Language Training Combined with Nonspeech Communication Training conditions. Further, subjects'scores for some dependent measures significantly correlated with their developmental ages and levels of communicative functioning. Results suggest that incorporation of graphic symbols into the language intervention program may facilitate language acquisition in a young child with Down Syndrome, provided the tasks and procedures are appropriate to the child's developmental age and level of communicative functioning.

Team Training for Young Children With Autism: A Regional Model for Service Delivery

Young children with autism and related developmental handicaps require early, intensive and comprehensive services if they are to progress rapidly and efficiently. Due to the relatively low incidence of autism and the lack of specially trained professionals, children who live in rural areas are typically unserved or are provided with limited services which fail to address adequately their extensive and ongoing needs. This article describes a recently developed regional model designed to provide thorough training services for preschool-aged children, their families, and community-based service providers who have an impact on the children's functioning and development. The team training approach is characterized by a focus on individualized intervention, ongoing assessments, and intensive training which seeks to produce a consistent, coordinated effort on behalf of the child-family-community interactions. The model is described in detail, and service implementation is illustrated by a representative case.

Group Social Skills Training for Young Children in a Clinical Setting

Peer interaction problems are often difficult to ameliorate in a clinical setting. In this study, four boys, whose many problems included difficulties with peer relationships, were given social skills training in a group over ten sessions. The main aim was to improve cooperative play, effective communication and conflict resolution skills by using a general problem-solving framework combining behavioural and cognitive techniques. The formal measures failed to show change, which may be due in part to inadequacies in the measures. Reports from therapists, teachers and parents suggested that there was considerable change within sessions, some improvement at school but very little at home.

Child-rearing strategies for the development of altruistic behavior in young children

Research findings concerning child-rearing strategies that encourage the development of altruistic behavior in young children from infancy to age six are incorporated in a workshop series for families. The workshops are designed to educate and influence the adult-child interaction on cognitive, behavioral, and affective levels. They have been developed for implementation by nonprofessionals in groups involved or interested in parent education and the care, guidance, and training of young children. The structure of the workshops emphasizes participation, role-playing, practice of skills, and discussion of experiences and values by the participants. The workshop content emphasizes an ecological approach that has been demonstrated to form a basis for encouraging helping, sharing, and comforting behaviors in young children.

Response training in young children’s discrimination shift learning

A passive responding procedure, pointing at the correct stimulus, was used to determine whether preschool children would test hypotheses from the relevant attribute in a discrimination shift task. Some children were administered the initial task in the usual manner, with positive or negative feedback. About half of these children did not reach criterion. Other children were told which stimulus to point at. These children were then given positive feedback, but were not told why the response was correct. All children then received a reversal or a nonreversal shift. The children who were told which stimulus to choose learned both shifts in the same manner that the children who attained criterion on their own did. The children who did not attain criterion, who failed to learn, performed on a nonreversal shift like the learners did on the reversal (the nonlearners’ reversal performance was like the learners’ nonreversal performance). The results show that a simple directed response can limit the sample of hypotheses that young children test in discrimination learning even when the purpose of the response is ambiguous.

INTERSENSORY TRANSFER OF TRAINING IN YOUNG CHILDREN.

Despite recent beginnings of experimental work on intersensory learning in children (Birch & Lefford, 1963; Blank & Bridger, 1964). the nature and conditions of such learning remain obscure. An experiment was designed to determine whether pretraining in a visual discrimination task would facilitate learning of an analogous auditory task. A group of 15 preschool children (6 boys, 9 girls), ages 3-3 to 5-1, were trained to respond to a two-light visual stimulus sequence by pushing a butcon corresponding to the color (red or blue) of the initial light. Subsequently they were taught to push the red button in response to a 1000-cps tone, and the blue button in response to the sound of a single door-chime. They were tested on a final task, an auditory analog of the visual prerraining: two-sound auditory sequence, tone and chime in randomly alternating order, with 4 blocks of 20 trials each. The red button was positive when the tone was the initial sound; the blue button was positive when the chime was the initial sound. A similar group of 22 ( 11 boys, 11 girls) children were given equivalenr experience in the room and were trained to respond to a single light by pushing the button of corresponding color. They also were trained to push the red button in response to the cone and the blue button in response to the chime. They were tested on the same final auditory task. Differences in the two groups on the final task were highly significant (F = 75.48, df = 2/35, p < .001), favoring the group with visual sequence training, indicating significant cross-modal transfer effects. However, when a third group of children were trained to respond positively to the linal light in a two-light sequence, they did nor show evidence of transfer to the auditory task. Thus it appears that intersensory transfer of a learned principle can be demonstrated easily in young children, but char the conditions leading to such transfer are not yet well-formulated. Considerably more research on the developmental aspects of intersensory behavior is needed.

OBSERVATION OF GROWTH OF CHILDREN IN PEDIATRIC PRACTICE

The guidance of the care and training of young children has become an important service rendered by pediatricians. This service is concerned with the recognition and treatment of defects or disease, with the prevention of infectious diseases, with adequate provision for nutritional and other needs and with the establishment of routines, habits and attitudes consistent with health. It requires the study of developmental characteristics and the observation of growth, as well as the search for and recognition of pathologic conditions. The former requires broad knowledge and deals with diverse fields of science. The care which is best suited to meet the needs of a child depends not only on his age but on the stage of development through which he is passing at the moment and on his individual characteristics. First, therefore, the program for the care of any child at any age should be worked out on the basis

A New Approach to Music for Young Children1

HE present study was designed to develop a more simple and adequate approach to the teaching of music to nursery school children by reducing music to its elements; namely, tone and rhythm. The procedure involved training in pitch and rhythmic discrimination. The aim was not to train the child to compose or to create, but to appreciate and to reproduce if music proved a satisfying form of self-expression. The problem was undertaken because, after four year's experience as a kindergarten teacher, the writer found that in general, the approach to musical training for young children was too complex. Music should be presented in its most simple form both in tone and rhythm, and when the child's capacity and interest permit, should gradually grow to a more complex form. Also, the writer felt that there should not be so many musically uninterested children. Music should

The Nervous System of the Child: Its Growth and Health In Education.

This is a work specially written for teachers, and in particular those who have the care and training of young children. It is one, however, the reading of which will be profitable also to the physician whose duties overlap in this respect those of the teacher and parent. The proper evolution of the child, the training him up in the way he should go, has been too often a haphazard or merely routine proceeding, and such an aid as this present volume ought to be welcome. It takes up only a point of the general subject of child training, that in relation to the school and education, but one that is a sufficiently extensive field. The author has given special attention to the hygienic aspects of education, and noted particularly where the functions of the teacher and the physician are interrelated. Child study, while in its present aspects comparatively a