Despite compelling evidence that qualifications of day care center directors are highly associated with center quality, standards and requirements are at best at a paraprofessional level and are often vague and unevenly enforced. (SK)

A total of 12 professional caregivers and 35 2- and 3-year olds participated in a study to determine caregivers' influence on the competence of preschoolers. Caregivers assisted children while the children performed classification tasks. Found that the sex of the children and the working conditions of the caregivers influenced children's task…

Reports on the importance of cross-cultural contact in the development of multicultural counseling competencies (MCCs). Results reveal that the greater the prior cross-cultural life experience, the higher were students' MCCs measured at the beginning of a multicultural counseling course. MCCs measured at the end of the course were significantly…

The philosophy of sport and physical activity being readily available for all youth has a long history. Research suggests that sport is a significant factor in the development of adolescents' self-esteem, identity and feelings of competence. Using sport to promote competence in youth has tremendous benefits and risks. The greatest risk is the…

This research project focuses on the question: Which effects do teachers' attitudes have on students' academic self-concept and students' competences? The study is informed by the theoretical perspective that competences and individual skills can be improved especially when students and teachers are confident about the possibility of change of…

Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) is a competency-based approach to intervening with adolescents, particularly within the schools, who are experiencing emotional pain, psychological distress, or behavioral disruption in their personal lives. LSCI is used to help classroom teachers, guidance counselors, administrators, and other school staff to…

Background: Previous research has reported on the effectiveness of the Signposts program for supporting families of children with an intellectual disability and difficult behaviour (Hudson et al., 2003; Hudson, Cameron, & Matthews, 2008). This paper reports on an investigation of the extent to which child characteristics moderate the…

Publicly funded prekindergartens are programs that most states use to promote school readiness, especially of 4-year-old children at risk for academic problems due to poverty. Despite large public expenditures, these programs have not been widely evaluated. We examined 240 randomly selected pre-kindergarten programs in six states with mature…

Needs assessment plays an important role in training and human performance improvement efforts, but the literature contains little research on this topic. This study extended previous research on the Performance Analysis for Training (PAT) model of needs assessment by examining its implementation to determine environmental and occupational health…

This study examined the effect of a mother-baby intervention on the quality of mother-child interaction, infant-mother attachment security, and infant socioemotional functioning in a group of depressed mothers with infants aged 1-12 months. A randomized controlled trial compared an experimental group (n = 35) receiving the intervention (8-10 home…

We conducted a systematic review of controlled studies of parenting programmes to prevent tobacco, alcohol or drug abuse in children less than 18. We searched Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, specialized Register of Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group, Pub Med, psych INFO, CINALH and SIGLE. Two reviewers independently screened studies,…

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of a behavioral psychosocial treatment integrated across home and school (Child Life and Attention Skills Program) with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) predominantly inattentive type (ADHD-I). Method: Sixty-nine children ages 7 to 11 years were randomized to the Child Life and Attention Skills…

In 1990, the Settlement Music School Kaleidoscope Preschool Arts Enrichment Program, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, created a preschool program to teach music and other creative arts to three- to five-year-olds. This article describes how the program works: how music teaches language and math, how dance teaches action words and spatial concepts,…

When total scores on the California Preschool Social Competency Scale (CPSCS) of disadvantaged children attending New York State experimental prekindergarten programs in 1975-76 were replaced by factor scores derived through principal component analysis, exposure time had no significant relationship to three components of the scale:…

An organizational development activity called "intergroup meeting" is discussed in terms of its format and its effectiveness in an organization. (BP)