A Young Child's Anxiety and Math Performance: Enhancing Cognitive Behavioral Intervention with Conjoint Behavioral Consultation

Partnering with families, school personnel, and community resources is an important step to supporting the child and family, especially when children might suffer from debilitating anxiety concerns. However, little research examines the impact of anxiety on math performance for young children participating in school-based interventions enhanced by family components. The following research questions were addressed in the study: 1a) Will a young child with elevated levels of anxiety show a decrease in anxiety symptoms with a Cognitive Behavioral framework intervention program for children? 1b) Will anxiety be reduced with the addition of a Conjoint Behavioral Consultation with the family and teacher? 2a) Will a young child show an increase in math performance after participation in a Cognitive Behavioral framework intervention program for children? 2b) Will math performance be increased with the addition of a Conjoint Behavioral Consultation with the family and teacher? A single-subject staggered baseline across situations intervention study addressed whether the Coping Cat, an evidenced-based child-focused intervention now widely used in schools and clinics to treat childhood anxiety, combined with family and school consultation will decrease elevated anxiety levels and improve math performance in an elementary-aged student. The objective was to support mental health development and math performance with an eight-year-old, female elementary student through a collaborative effort of stakeholders in the student's life. Baseline data was collected with repeated measures of anxiety and math performance, and was compared to two intervention phases: first, a child-focused intervention and second, a family and school consultation. The study tested the theory that the Cognitive Behavioral intervention and Conjoint Behavioral Consultation intervention will influence, positively, the anxiety levels and math performance for an elementary-aged student. Results indicate that the child participant with elevated levels of anxiety showed a reduction in symptoms with the introduction of a Cognitive Behavioral framework intervention when compared to her baseline data. The participant showed further reduction in symptoms across the school and home settings with the implementation of Conjoint Behavioral Consultation when compared to baseline and the first intervention phase. Math performance began to increase with the introduction of the Cognitive Behavioral intervention, and continued to improve with the implementation of the Conjoint Behavioral Consultation. Findings suggest that consultation should begin immediately when an intervention is implemented in order to enhance outcomes.

Child Centered Play-Therapy with a Child Diagnosed with Kabuki Syndrome

Kabuki Syndrome (KS) is a rare genetic disorder first diagnosed in 1981 (Matsumoto & Niikawa, 2003). It's clinical presentation and treatment is unknown by most clinicians the mental health fields. Children with KS present with unique facial characteristics, mental retardation, health problems and socio-emotional delays that are often mistaken for other diagnostic problems. Literature detailing the psychological and psychosocial features of this disorder is scant, and psychotherapeutic approaches have not been described. In this article we present a brief review of Kabuki Syndrome, highlighting its signs and symptoms. Differential diagnoses are identified to aid the clinician in better understanding this unique and relatively unheard of syndrome. Finally, a client-centered play therapy and parent consultation approach is described that addresses the many child and family challenges that may accompany KS.

The Caregiver–Child Relationship, Youth Mental Health, and Placement Stability in a Child Welfare Sample

Objective: Healthy relationships between adolescents and their caregivers have been robustly associated with better youth outcomes in a variety of domains. Youth in contact with the child welfare system are at higher risk for worse outcomes including mental health problems and home placement instability. A growing body of literature points to youth mental health problems as both a predictor and a consequence of home placement instability in this population; the present study aimed to expand our understanding of these phenomena by examining the interplay among the caregiver-child relationship, youth mental health symptoms, and placement change over time. Method: The sample consisted of 1,179 youths aged 11-16, from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a nationally representative sample of children in contact with the child welfare system. We used bivariate correlations and autoregressive cross-lagged path analysis to examine how youths’ reports of their externalizing and internalizing symptoms, their relationship with their caregivers, and placement changes reciprocally influenced one another over three time points. Results: In the overall models, early internalizing symptoms significantly negatively predicted the quality of the caregiver-child relationship at the next time point, and early externalizing symptoms predicted subsequent placement change. In addition, later externalizing symptoms negatively predicted subsequent reports of relationship quality, and later placement changes predicted subsequent externalizing problems; these relationships were significant only at the trend level (p < .10). The quality of the relationship was significantly negatively correlated with externalizing and internalizing problems at all time points, and all variables demonstrated autoregressive stability over time. Conclusions: Our findings support the importance of comprehensive interventions for youth in contact with the child welfare system, which target not only youth symptoms in isolation, but also the caregiver-child relationship, as a way to improve social-emotional outcomes in this high-risk population.

Parent-Child Interaction and Children's Self-Concept

This study is designed to investigate the relationships between marital communication, the quality of parents' ability to assist their children in joint problem-solving, and children's independent mastery attempts and perceived competence at problem-solving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Couples' skill at regulating their own and their children's negative affect within the marital and parent-child family subsystems is hypothesized to predict the quality of their assistance, or scaffolding behavior, to their children during joint problem-solving. Further, the quality of parental scaffolding behavior is expected to predict children's independent mastery attempts, levels of perceived competence at problemsolving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Families for the study will be those with children between 3 1/2 to six years of age recruited from subjects participating in a longitudinal study of communication in marriage being conducted at the Denver Center for Marital and Family Studies. Families will participate in three interaction tasks designed to tap parental scaffolding behavior during problemsolving with their children. Children will be administered self-report measures to tap their perceived competence at such problem-solving as those in the interaction tasks and parents will complete a questionnaire tapping the behavioral indicators of their child's self-esteem. Family interaction data will be coded with the use of a microanalytic coding system developed by this study, the Parent-Child Interaction Coding System. Marital communication data at three time points, premaritally, during the transition to parenthood , and concurrently, will be obtained from couples' interactions from the longitudinal study. The clinical significance of this study includes implications for training couples how to effectively regulate negative affect and offer their children sensitive assistance during joint problem-solving.

Family Coping as a Protective Factor for Poor Children

This study examined family influences on coping and adjustment among 90 low-income Latino middle school children (46% Female; Average age = 11.38, SD = .66) and their primary caregivers (93% Female; Average age = 36.12, SD = 6.13). All participants identified as Hispanic/Latino, with 75% of families identifying as Mexican-origin Latino, 77% of parents identifying as immigrants, and 32% of children identifying immigrants. All children participating in the study were receiving free or reduced lunch, a poverty indicator. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that family reframing is related to fewer symptoms of psychopathology and that familism enhances the protective effect of family reframing, while passive appraisal is linked to worse functioning. Path analyses showed that family reframing also has indirect effects on symptoms through child primary control coping. Additional analyses identified family mobilizing support and family ethnic socialization as potential contributors to child secondary control coping. Family mobilizing support may also be helpful for single-parent families, while family spiritual support is helpful for immigrant families. Qualitative findings from an initial focus group and from the larger sample are also discussed. Results are discussed with regard to the implications of this research for preventive interventions with families in poverty. Understanding the protective links of family coping and cultural strengths to mental health outcomes of poor children can influence intervention or prevention programming and policy targeting at-risk youth and families.