Do simple "groundrules" reduce preschoolers' suggestibility about experienced and nonexperienced events?

This study examined whether providing preschool children with simple groundrules (the importance of being complete, saying „I don‟t know‟, correcting the interviewer and not guessing) would reduce false details in their recall of a staged event. Forty-nine preschool children participated in an event that consisted of two activities. One or two days later they were given a biasing interview that included false suggestions about one of the experienced activities as well as a non-experienced activity. For the other activity, no suggestions were made. Eight, 15, and 22 days after the event, the children were required to recall all three activities in their own words. Immediately prior to their recall, half of the children were provided with the groundrules while the remaining children were not. The children in the control group also participated in a fifth interview in which they received the groundrule instructions. The results revealed that the provision of the groundrules had negligible impact on the accuracy of information provided irrespective of the context or order of the interview or the activity being recalled. The implications of these results are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.

The test-retest reliability of the child-initiated pretend play assessment

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to establish the test–retest reliability of the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA) (Stagnitti, 2002a; Stagnitti, Unsworth, & Rodger, 2000).

METHOD: The first author rated 38 preschool children ages 4 and 5 years (4 with developmental delay and 34 typically developing) on the ChIPPA. The ChIPPA employs conventional play materials and unstructured play materials to assess three qualities of a child's play ability: elaborateness of play action, ability to substitute objects during play, and the child's need to imitate the modelled actions of the examiner. The ChIPPA was administered twice, at a 2-week interval, to each participant.

RESULTS: Test–retest intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) (Type 2,1) calculated for each of the three elaborate play measures ranged from .73 to .84. A test–retest ICC of .56 was obtained for object substitution with unstructured play materials. The test–retest ICC obtained for the combined score for unstructured and conventional play materials was .57. Percentage agreement figures ranging from 63.2% to 84.2% were obtained on test–retest of the object substitution with conventional toys and imitated actions measures. There was no significant difference between test and retest scores for these measures based on a Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Signed-Ranks Test (Wilcoxon Sign Test).

CONCLUSION: Elaborate play scores, object substitution with conventional toys score, and imitation scores on the ChIPPA showed stability over time. Object substitution scores using unstructured materials were the least stable play measures and appeared to be related to the child's play themes. Since play is the primary occupation of children, it is essential that therapists have a reliable measure of play behavior. The test–retest reliability results from the ChIPPA provide evidence that this assessment produces a stable measure of play behavior that can then guide therapists when planning intervention strategies for children.

Pretend play and parents' view of social competence: the construct validity of the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment.

Background and Aims: Play is the primary means through which children develop skills and socially interact with other children. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between pretend play and social competence in 4–5-year-old typically developing children, thereby adding further knowledge to the construct validity of the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA). Procedure: The pretend play ability of 35 preschool children aged 4–5 years was assessed using the ChIPPA. Parent/guardians of the children were interviewed regarding their child's social competence using the Vineland Social–Emotional Early Childhood Scales (Vineland SEEC Scales). Main Findings: No significant correlations were found between the children's play scores and their Vineland SEEC Scales scores. A significant and negative relationship was found between cooperation and sharing and elaborate play scores, suggesting that children who scored poorly on the play assessment were rated as cooperative by parents. Principal Conclusions: Parent report of social competence cannot be inferred from play scores. Reasons for the negative and significant finding are put forward and clinical implications of the findings are discussed. Additional investigations are necessary to further explore the construct validity of inferring social competence using the ChIPPA.

Empowering practitioners to critically examine their current practice

A Self-Assessment Manual (SAM) for early childhood practitioners has been developed around the previously reported framework (Raban, Waniganayake, Deans, Brown & Reynolds, 2003a), and this has been piloted in a number of early childhood settings. When engaging in self reflection using SAM, practitioners collaborate with mentors from the Early Childhood Consortium Victoria (ECCV) to consider their past, present and future professional experiences. This process empowers practitioners to critically examine their current practice and plan for their future professional development in a more systematic way. SAM is seen here to serve dual purposes: on the one hand, it is an evaluative instrument that can direct professional development of individual practitioners. On the other hand, it is a research tool aimed at identifying theoretical assumptions underpinning professional practice, and allows a longitudinal approach to mapping professional growth and development. Either way, it has the potential to enhance the quality of early childhood experiences for preschool children regardless of the settings in which they may find themselves. This paper presents a formative evaluation of this work and discusses its potential for professional development planning.

Bullying affects us too: parental responses to bullying at kindergarten

Preschool age children are often thought of as too young to be able to engage in bullying behaviours. However, when it does occur, there are ramifications not only for the child but also for parents and siblings. This article explores this issue by reporting on an exploratory study involving interviews with four parents whose child had experienced bullying in a Victorian kindergarten. Parents reported a range of responses, including anger, guilt for not protecting their child, and powerlessness in the face of denial from kindergarten staff that their child had been bullied. Being unable to access information about bullying among preschool children which might validate their experiences, reinforced the sense of isolation these parents experienced. Further research which explores the needs of family members of children bullied in the kindergarten (prior to school) setting is needed.

Art embodied and disembodied : expression, representation, and reflection

In this chapter a group of writers from very diverse academic backgrounds deal with the embodied and disembodied arts - from an exploration of dance with preschool children to the use of the webblog for eleven and twelve year olds to reflect on the creation of a group performance about how to change the world. The Deans & Young case study takes the reader into the world of the preschooler and the delicate craft of the dance and drama teachers who guide their small dancers through myriad choreographic and conceptual tasks in their pursuit of kinaesthetic learning. Jo Raphael allow the young bloggers to speak from themselves in her case study. How to Change the World. Through the voices of the Year 6 students, Jo raises the critical question of how to build meaningful reflection into the arts-making process, and suggests that for the current generation of 'cyber-natives', the digital world offers many great possibilities. Theory concerning forms of expression and representation in the embodies and digital world is also discussed.

Healthy eating and obesity prevention for preschoolers : a randomised controlled trial

Background
Developing effective prevention and intervention programs for the formative preschool years is seen as an essential step in combating the obesity epidemic across the lifespan. The overall goal of the current project is to measure the effectiveness of a healthy eating and childhood obesity prevention intervention, the MEND (Mind Exercise Nutrition Do It!) program that is delivered to parents of children aged 2-4 years.

Methods/Design
This randomised controlled trial will be conducted with 200 parents and their 2-4 year old children who attend the MEND 2-4 program in metropolitan and regional Victoria. Parent-child dyads will attend ten 90-minute group workshops. These workshops focus on general nutrition, as well as physical activity and behaviours. They are typically held at community or maternal and child health centres and run by a MEND 2-4 trained program leader. Child eating habits, physical activity levels and parental behaviours and cognitions pertaining to nutrition and physical activity will be assessed at baseline, the end of the intervention, and at 6 and 12 months post the intervention. Informed consent will be obtained from all parents, who will then be randomly allocated to the intervention or wait-list control group.

Discussion
Our study is the first RCT of a healthy eating and childhood obesity prevention intervention targeted specifically to Australian parents and their preschool children aged 2-4 years. It responds to the call by experts in the area of childhood obesity and child health that prevention of overweight in the formative preschool years should focus on parents, given that parental beliefs, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours appear to impact significantly on the development of early overweight. This is 'solution-oriented' rather than 'problem-oriented' research, with its focus being on prevention rather than intervention. If this is a positive trial, the MEND2-4 program can be implemented as a national program.

Trial Registration
Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12610000200088

The Cool Little Kids randomised controlled trial population-level early prevention for anxiety disorders

Background: The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030 internalising problems (e.g. depression and anxiety) will be second only to HIV/AIDS in international burden of disease. Internalising problems affect 1 in 7 school aged children, impacting on peer relations, school engagement, and later mental health, relationships and employment. The development of early childhood prevention for internalising problems is in its infancy. The current study follows two successful ‘efficacy’ trials of a parenting group intervention to reduce internalising disorders in temperamentally inhibited preschool children. Cool Little Kids is a population-level randomised trial to determine the impacts of systematically screening preschoolers for inhibition then offering a parenting group intervention, on child internalising problems and economic costs at school entry.
Methods/Design: This randomised trial will be conducted within the preschool service system, attended by more than 95% of Australian children in the year before starting school. In early 2011, preschool services in four local government areas in Melbourne, Australia, will distribute the screening tool. The ≈16% (n≈500) with temperamental inhibition will enter the trial. Intervention parents will be offered Cool Little Kids, a 6-session group program in the local community, focusing on ways to develop their child’s bravery skills by reducing overprotective parenting interactions. Outcomes one and two years post-baseline will comprise child internalising diagnoses and symptoms, parenting interactions, and parent wellbeing. An economic evaluation (costconsequences framework) will compare incremental differences in costs of the intervention versus control children to incremental differences in outcomes, from a societal perspective. Analyses will use the intention-to-treat principle, using logistic and linear regression models (binary and continuous outcomes respectively) to compare outcomes between the trial arms.
Discussion: This trial addresses gaps for internalising problems identified in the 2004 World Health Organization Prevention of Mental Disorders report. If effective and cost-effective, the intervention could readily be applied at a population level. Governments consider mental health to be a priority, enhancing the likelihood that an effective early prevention program would be adopted in Australia and internationally.

A population-based study of preschoolers' food neophobia and its associations with food preferences

Objective: This cross-sectional study was designed to investigate the relationships between food preferences, food neophobia, and children’s characteristics among a population-based sample of preschoolers.

Design: A parent-report questionnaire.

Setting: Child-care centers, kindergartens, playgroups, day nurseries, and swimming centers.

Subjects: 371 two- to five-year-old Australian children.

Outcome Measures: Associations between food neophobia and the food preferences and characteristics.

Analysis: Analysis of variance, analysis of covariance, Pearson product-moment correlations, and Fisher z test were used to estimate and compare the associations between these variables.

Results: Food neophobia was associated with reduced preferences for all food groups, but especially for vegetables (r = −0.60; P < .001). It was also associated with liking fewer food types (r = −0.55; P < .001), disliking more food types (r = 0.42; P < .001), the number of untried food types (r = 0.25; P < .001), a less varied range of food preferences (r = −0.59; P < .001), and less healthful food preferences overall (r = −0.55; P < .001). No significant relationships (P < .01) were observed between food neophobia and a child’s age, sex, or history of breast-feeding.

Conclusions: The study confirms and extends results obtained in experimental research and population-based intake studies of food neophobia to children’s everyday food preferences. The findings suggest that preschool children’s everyday food preferences are strongly associated with food neophobia but not with children’s age, sex, or history of breast-feeding. When aiming to influence children’s food preferences, the effects of food neophobia and strategies to reduce it should be considered.

Dual audiences, double pedagogies : representing family literacy as parental work in picture books

Narrative for a dual audience of children and adults is a field of expanding interest among children’s literature scholars. A great deal of the extant research is implicitly or explicitly informed by longstanding anxieties about the status of children’s fiction, a context that shifts the parameters of the analysis to questions of literary sophistication. Whilst some attention is paid to the readersubject position of the child reader, rather less is given to the positioning of the adult reader in relation to the pedagogical agendas of such texts. This article examines picture books featuring parents reading to preschool children. In the context of family literacy, it is an instance in which the pedagogical address to the adult reader is as significant as the address to the child. Drawing on distinctions between double and dual address, the article examines the ways in which representations of parents.

Reducing the energy density of an entrée decreases children’s energy intake at lunch

Background: Strategies need to be developed to reduce preschool children’s energy intake.

Objective: To test the effect of reducing the energy density of an entrée on children’s ad libitum energy intake.

Subjects: Subjects were 2- to 5-year-old children (37 boys and 40 girls) in a university day-care facility.

Intervention: In this within-subjects crossover study, children were served a test lunch once per week for 6 weeks. Two versions of a macaroni and cheese entrée were formulated to differ in energy density while maintaining similar palatability. Each version was served to children three times. The higher-energy-density entrée had 2.0 kcal/g and the other entrée was 30% lower in energy density. Lunch, consumed ad libitum, also included broccoli, applesauce, and milk.

Main outcome measures: Food intake and energy intake were measured.

Statistical analyses: A mixed linear model tested effect of energy density of the entrée on food intake and energy intake. Results are reported as mean±standard error.

Results: Decreasing the energy density of the entrée by 30% significantly (P<0.0001) reduced children’s energy intake from the entrée by 25% (72.3±8.3 kcal) and total lunch energy intake by 18% (71.8±7.9 kcal). Children consumed significantly more of the lower-energy-density entrée (10.1±4.2 g; P<0.05). Children’s sex-specific body mass index–for-age percentiles did not affect the relationship between energy density of the entrée and children’s intakes.

Conclusions: Decreasing the energy density of a lunch entrée resulted in a reduction in children’s energy intake from the entrée and from the total meal. Reducing the energy density of foods may be an effective strategy to moderate children’s energy intake.

Outcomes of population based language promotion for slow to talk toddlers at ages 2 and 3 years: let’s learn language cluster randomised controlled trial

Objective To determine the benefits of a low intensity parent-toddler language promotion programme delivered to toddlers identified as slow to talk on screening in universal services.
Design Cluster randomised trial nested in a population based survey.
Setting Three local government areas in Melbourne, Australia.
Participants Parents attending 12 month well child checks over a six month period completed a baseline questionnaire. At 18 months, children at or below the 20th centile on an expressive vocabulary checklist entered the trial.
Intervention Maternal and child health centres (clusters) were randomly allocated to intervention (modified “You Make the Difference” programme over six weekly sessions) or control (“usual care”) arms.
Main outcome measures The primary outcome was expressive language (Preschool Language Scale-4) at 2 and 3 years; secondary outcomes were receptive language at 2 and 3 years, vocabulary checklist raw score at 2 and 3 years, Expressive Vocabulary Test at 3 years, and Child Behavior Checklist/1.5-5 raw score at 2 and 3 years.
Results 1217 parents completed the baseline survey; 1138 (93.5%) completed the 18 month checklist, when 301 (26.4%) children had vocabulary scores at or below the 20th centile and were randomised (158 intervention, 143 control). 115 (73%) intervention parents attended at least one session (mean 4.5 sessions), and most reported high satisfaction with the programme. Interim outcomes at age 2 years were similar in the two groups. Similarly, at age 3 years, adjusted mean differences (intervention−control) were −2.4 (95% confidence interval −6.2 to 1.4; P=0.21) for expressive language; −0.3 (−4.2 to 3.7; P=0.90) for receptive language; 4.1 (−2.3 to 10.6; P=0.21) for vocabulary checklist; −0.5 (−4.4 to 3.4; P=0.80) for Expressive Vocabulary Test; −0.1 (−1.6 to 1.4; P=0.86) for externalising behaviour problems; and −0.1 (−1.3 to 1.2; P=0. 92) for internalising behaviour problems.
Conclusion This community based programme targeting slow to talk toddlers was feasible and acceptable, but little evidence was found that it improved language or behaviour either immediately or at age 3 years.

Healthy eating and obesity prevention for preschoolers : data collected from a randomised controlled trial

This data offers insights into child eating habits and daily dietary intake, duration of daily child physical and sedentary activities, parental knowledge of nutrition, child and parent Body Mass Index (BMI), parental behaviours and cognitions pertaining to feeding, eating and physical activity, parental concern for child weight, and child food neophobia.It includes survey data and physical measurements (height and weight) of participants.

Promoting Fundamental movement skill development and physical activity in early childhood settings : a cluster randomized controlled trial

The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility, acceptability and potential efficacy of a physical activity program for preschool children. A 20-week, 2-arm parallel cluster randomized controlled pilot trial was conducted. The intervention comprised structured activities for children and professional development for staff. The control group participated in usual care activities, which included designated inside and outside playtime. Primary outcomes were movement skill development and objectively measured physical activity. At follow-up, compared with children in the control group, children in the intervention group showed greater improvements in movement skill proficiency, with this improvement statically significant for overall movement skill development (adjust diff. = 2.08, 95% CI 0.76, 3.40; Cohen’s d = 0.47) and significantly greater increases in objectively measured physical activity (counts per minute) during the preschool day (adjust diff. = 110.5, 95% CI 33.6, 187.3; Cohen’s d = 0.46). This study demonstrates that a physical activity program implemented by staff within a preschool setting is feasible, acceptable and potentially efficacious.