Faculty Bibliography

We describe a university-community collaborative effort to tailor and deliver a prevention program for families of preschoolers living in low-income, urban communities. ParentCorps, which builds on efficacious interventions with parents and young children, aims to promote child social competence and prevent conduct problems by strengthening parenting skills, enhancing support for parents, and empowering parents to access resources in their communities. Active community engagement and collaboration were viewed as critical to the development of the program and its feasibility testing. We present an overview of community involvement in the development of ParentCorps and approaches taken to involve community members during a feasibility study. Areas of success and lessons learned are discussed. (journal abstract)

This study examined parental functioning and interactions with young children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), with emphasis on differences between mothers and fathers in their responses to their child and in their unique contributions to the prediction of child disruptive behavior. Participants were 53 3- to 6-year olds with ODD who presented for treatment with two parents. Mothers reported more severe disruptive behavior and higher parenting stress than fathers. During parent-child interactions, mothers showed more responsiveness than fathers, even though children were more compliant during interactions with fathers. Regression analyses showed that fathers' parent-related stress was predictive of both mothers' and father's reports of disruptive child behavior; mothers' marital satisfaction was predictive of behavioral observations of child compliance with both mothers and fathers. This study revealed several important differences in the experiences of mothers versus fathers of disruptive children and indicates the importance of including the father in the child's assessment and treatment

Explored self-reported parenting in a Hispanic sample of mothers living in the mainland United States using a cultural framework. Participants were 130 immigrant or first-generation Dominican and Puerto Rican mothers with a child between the ages of 2 and 6 years. Mothers completed questionnaires related to their parenting behavior and also filled out a detailed demographic form and a measure of acculturation. Results suggested that both Dominican and Puerto Rican mothers engage in high levels of praise and physical affection and low levels of harsh, inconsistent, and punitive parenting behaviors. Dominican and Puerto Rican parenting was similar on measures of authoritarian and permissive parenting, but differences emerged on a measure of authoritative parenting and when parenting was considered at the more detailed level of individual behaviors. Parenting was related to several demographic characteristics, including father's education level and child age; more specifically, higher paternal education and younger age of the child were related to higher levels of authoritative parenting by mothers. Parenting and acculturation were generally not related. Discussion focused on a culturally sensitive interpretation of normative parenting among Dominican and Puerto Rican mothers

OBJECTIVE: Taking into account the high prevalence of behavioral problems in the pediatric outpatient clinic, a need for a useful and easy to administer tool for the evaluation of this problem arises. The psychometric characteristics of the Spanish version of the Eyberg Behavioral Child Inventory (EBCI), [in Spanish Inventario de Eyberg para el Comportamiento de Nino (IECN)], a 36-item questionnaire were established. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The ECBI inventory/questionnaire was translated into Spanish. The basis of the ECBI is the evaluation of the child's behavior through the parents' answers to the questionnaire. Healthy children between 2 and 12 years of age were included and were taken from pediatric outpatient clinics from urban and suburban areas of Barcelona and from our hospital's own ambulatory clinic. RESULTS: The final sample included 518 subjects. The mean score on the intensity scale was 96.8 and on the problem scale 3.9. Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) was 0.73 and the test-retest had an r of 0.89 (p < 0.001) for the intensity scale and r = 0.93 (p < 0.001) for the problem scale. Interrater reliability for the intensity scale was r = 0.58 (p < 0.001) and r = 0.32 (p < 0.001) for the problem scale. Concurrent validity between both scales was r = 0.343 (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The IECN is a useful and easy tool to apply in the pediatrician's office as a method for early detection of behavior problems