The Abecedarian Approach

Investigators: Craig T. Ramey, Joseph J. Sparling, & Sharon L. Ramey

The Abecedarian Approach is a combination of teaching and learning enrichment strategies for use in early childhood education settings that is comprised of four key elements: 1) learning games, 2) conversational reading, 3) language priority, and 4) enriched care giving. These strategies were developed for and validated in a longitudinal research study known as the Abecedarian Project. By using the Abecedarian Approach, early childhood professionals can enhance their abilities to provide stable and stimulating interactions with children by engaging them in many rich and varied adult-child interaction activities on a daily basis. The ultimate goal of this educational approach is to facilitate positive child outcomes in areas such as cognitive, social-emotional, communication, and school readiness skills. The evaluation results of the Abecedarian Project demonstrate that early education for at-risk children within a safe, responsive, and stimulating environment can produce positive and long-lasting effects on the course of development. The Abecedarian Project is the only early childhood education program that has demonstrated statistically significant cognitive benefits into young adulthood. The four key elements of the Abecedarian Approach constitute a powerful tool for early childhood professionals to improve the competence and quality of life, particularly for children from low resource environments.

The Brookline Early Education Project (BEEP): A Comprehensive Birth-to-Kindergarten Program for Children and Their Parents

Investigators: Donald E. Pierson, PhD, Robert I. Sperber, Martha B. Bronson, EdD & Mary-Jane Yurchak, EdD

The Brookline Early Education Project (BEEP) is a comprehensive birth-to-kindergarten program that combines child education and health monitoring services with parent education and support. BEEP utilizes a family-oriented approach designed to reduce learning and adjustment difficulties in school. BEEP consists of three components: 1) Parent Education and Support Program, 2) Child Education Program, and 3) Health and Development Monitoring. The Parent Education and Support Program provides home visits to families, parent discussion groups, a book and toy lending library, and social events. The Child Education Program consists of weekly playgroup sessions and daily prekindergarten classes. Finally, the Health and Development Monitoring program provides nine health and developmental screening exams for children beginning from two weeks of age through age 5. Evaluations of the BEEP program demonstrated higher school functioning in kindergarten and the second grade compared to age-matched peers. At early adulthood, benefits for BEEP participants compared to peers included higher educational attainment, higher income, and more positive health indicators. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

The Coping Bear: Group and Individual Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Children with Anxiety Disorders and their Parents

Investigators: Katharina Manassis, MD & Sandra L. Mendlowitz, PhD

The Coping Bear is an intervention with parental involvement for children with: social phobia, depression, simple phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and/or separation anxiety disorder. The treatment program utilizes a group process problem-solving approach with the overall goals of: 1) teaching children to recognize their emotional distress, and to learn and practice new coping skills; and 2) facilitating the generalization of these coping skills by involving parents in the treatment process. The program can be implemented in both individual and group settings and includes systematic desensitization techniques, reinforcement principles, approaches to resistant behavior, aids to exposure to anxiety-provoking situations, and relaxation techniques. Two separate randomized clinical trials evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of this program. In the 1999 study, participants were randomly assigned to a child only therapy group (no parental involvement), parent only group (no child involvement), or child and parent group (separate groups of children and parents run concurrently), or a wait list control condition. Less anxiety and depression were reported post-treatment by all children. Children who were treated with their parents used more active coping strategies than children in the other treatment groups. In the 2002 study, participants were randomly assigned to either separate individual therapy sessions for child and for parent, or concurrent child-only and parent-only groups. Assessments pre- and post-treatment showed that regardless of treatment setting, children and mothers reported decreased anxiety and improved global functioning post treatment. In addition, children with high social anxiety had more improvement in an individual treatment setting than in a group setting. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), Household Youth Data, 1988-94

Investigators: US Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is one of the major surveys of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) was conducted in two phases between October 1988 and October 1994. It was designed to obtain nationally representative information on the health and nutritional status of the U.S. population through in-home interviews and direct physical examinations conducted in a mobile examination center (MEC). NHANES III is the seventh in a series of national examination studies conducted in the U. S. beginning in 1960, and is the first NHANES to include persons 75 years of age and over. The goals of the NHANES III are similar to those of earlier NHANES and are listed below. The last two are new for the NHANES III. to estimate the national prevalence of selected diseases and risk factors, to estimate national population reference distributions of selected health parameters, to document and investigate reasons for secular trends in selected risk factors and diseases, to contribute to an understanding of what causes disease (etiology), and to investigate the natural history of selected diseases. The NHANES III Household Youth Data File contains all data collected during the household interviews for children and youths 2 months to 16 years of age. Demographic data, survey design variables, and sampling weights for this age group are also included. The data that comprise this file were obtained from three separate interviews administered in the household: the Screener, the Family, and Household Youth questionnaires.

Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-3), September 5 through December 4, 1993

Investigators: Andrea J. Sedlak, Irene Hantman, and Dana Schultz

The Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-3) was designed to meet several congressional mandates issued in the Child Abuse Prevention, Adoption, and Family Services Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-294). Specifically, the NIS-3: provided current estimates of the incidence of child abuse and neglect in the United States and measured changes in these estimates from earlier studies; examined the distribution of child maltreatment in relation to various demographic factors; estimated the incidence of substantiated maltreatment cases that result in civil and criminal proceedings, and their disposition; and developed an understanding of the relationships between an incident of maltreatment, its observation, its report to a Child Protective Services agency, and any actions taken by the agency. The NIS-3 offers an important perspective on the scope of child abuse and neglect. The NIS includes children who were investigated by child protective service (CPS) agencies, but it also obtains data on children seen by community professionals who were not reported to CPS or who were screened out by CPS without investigation. This means that the NIS estimates provide a more comprehensive measure of the scope of child abuse and neglect known to community professionals, including both abused and neglected children who are in the official statistics and those who are not. The NIS follows a nationally representative design, which means that the estimates represent the numbers of abused and neglected children in the United States who come to the attention of community professionals. The NIS-3 was conducted in a nationally representative sample of 42 counties. In every county, the CPS agency was a key participant, providing basic demographic data on all the children who were reported and accepted for investigation during the 3-month study data period, September 5 through December 4, 1993. Further details about the child's maltreatment and the outcome of the CPS investigation were obtained for a representative sample of these cases.

Trauma Focused Coping: Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Children and Adolescents with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after Single-Incident Trauma

Investigators: John S. March, MD, MPH & Lisa Amaya-Jackson, MD, MPH

Trauma Focused Coping (TFC) is a group cognitive behavioral therapy treatment program for children and adolescents with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and collateral symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, and external locus of control originating from single-incident trauma. Based on social learning theory, TFC uses a group skills-oriented cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approach and involves 14 weekly sessions in which the first few sessions lay the groundwork for the child to think differently about PTSD. The treatment model is one of graded exposure, and begins with psychoeducation and cognitive therapy before moving to more exposure-based activities. TFC has two overall goals: 1) to help the child organize an accurate trauma narrative that places the trauma in the past and is without cognitive distortions, and 2) to promote behavior consistent with the view that the world is no longer dangerous when threat is truly absent. Each child completes a narrative Chapter Book that tells his or her story, including an accurate telling of the trauma history, its effects on the child's life, and successes in overcoming that history so that the child can live as comfortably as possible in the present. Session components include: psychoeducation, cognitive therapy, exposure-based behavior therapy, generalization training, and relapse prevention. TFC also offers developmentally appropriate treatment adaptations for elementary school-age children and junior high school adolescents including therapeutic modalities such as storybooks, narrative exposure, cognitive games, and peer modeling. Click here to view more detailed information on this program.

Treatment Process: A Problem at Three Levels, 1988

Investigators: Gerald R. Patterson and Patricia Chamberlain

This study investigates the process of therapeutic intervention in the treatment of oppositional children and their parents. As part of an ongoing program of empirical investigation of treatment process variables, Patterson and Chamberlain employ nonreactive observational measures of behavior to assess the effects of family management training on the behavior of extremely antisocial, preadolescent children. This dataset is comprised of two separate raw data files generated from this research. The first includes therapist-client verbal interaction codes for 73 families participating in the Parent Training treatment program conducted at the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC). Three phases of treatment were videotaped. Verbal interactions were coded with the Therapy Process Coding System developed at OSLC. The second dataset includes demographic data gathered during the treatment intake interview.

U.S. Current Population Survey: Selected Variables-Children, 1980

Investigators: U.S. Census Bureau

The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly household sample survey of individuals living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Conducted by the Bureau of the Census, this survey is intended to provide a basis for estimates of employment, unemployment, and other characteristics of the general labor force, of the U.S. population as a whole, and of various subgroups of the population. In this survey data on demographic characteristics and employment experiences, for the week preceding the survey, are obtained for household members aged 14 or over. Data are obtained through interviews with a single responsible member of the household. Beginning in 1971, at the request of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a special supplementary survey was conducted in selected years, in conjunction with the June CPS, to obtain data on individuals' marital and fertility histories and on their birth expectations. Data were also obtained on children residing in the household. The file described here (DAAPPP Data Set No. 13) contains data for 37,970 children aged 13 and under residing in households surveyed in the June 1980 CPS. This file is intended as a supplement to the files for women and men included in the June 1980 CPS (DAAPPP Data Set Nos. 11 and 12, respectively). It provides information on the age, sex, race, ethnic background, and relationship to household head for all children in the participating households.

U.S. Current Population Survey: Selected Variables-Children, 1982

Investigators: U.S. Census Bureau

This file, containing variables on the age, race, sex, and relationship of the respondent to the head of the household, was prepared primarily as a supplement to DAAPPP Data Set No. 14. The data concerns 34,036 children age 13 or under who were living in households surveyed by the CPS.Note for users of DAAPPP Data Sets #01-B1DAAPPP data sets 01 through B1 are comprised of a User's Guide, SPSS syntax files (*.SPS or *.SPX) and raw data files only. Most of these datasets contain SPSS syntax files that use Job Control Language (JCL) from 1980s versions of SPSS-X. Because the syntax is old, the syntax files require editing to conform to the current syntax standards used by SPSS/Windows or SPSS/Unix. If you require technical assistance in using or editing these syntax files, please contact Sociometrics' Data Support Group at 800.846.3475 or socio@socio.com.

U.S. National Infant Mortality Survey, 1964-1966

Investigators: National Center for Health Statistics

The study is a collection of data for a sample of infant deaths occurring in calendar years 1964, 1965, and 1966. Each data record is composed of information obtained from the death certificate and from a questionnaire that was sent to the mother of the deceased child. The survey extends, for statistical purposes, the range of items normally included in the vital records, providing national estimates of infant deaths by characteristics not available from the vital registration system and serving as a basis for evaluating the quality of information reported on the vital records. Data include information on hospitalization of the infant who died, other children of the mother, household composition, income, employment of mother, education of parents and health insurance. The nationally representative survey was based on a sample of infant death vital records (1 out of 110 infant deaths) with a response rate of 88 per cent. The sample size is 7,866 cases; weights applied to the 2,490 cases of infant deaths in 1964-1966 may be used to reflect U.S. estimates of infant deaths during the study period. Note for users of DAAPPP Data Sets #01-B1DAAPPP data sets 01 through B1 are comprised of a User's Guide, SPSS syntax files (*.SPS or *.SPX) and raw data files only. Most of these datasets contain SPSS syntax files that use Job Control Language (JCL) from 1980s versions of SPSS-X. Because the syntax is old, the syntax files require editing to conform to the current syntax standards used by SPSS/Windows or SPSS/Unix. If you require technical assistance in using or editing these syntax files, please contact Sociometrics' Data Support Group at 800.846.3475 or socio@socio.com.