Program evaluation findings of an intensive early intervention program.

An intensive early intervention program was evaluated through determining child gains made by 44 children with special needs in cognition, gross-motor, fine-motor, receptive language, and expressive language domains. Gains were examined for the total group and two subgroups based upon their delays at pretesting. Analyses comparing actual to predicted posttest scores for the total group did not reveal statistically significant gains in any domains. Findings by subgroup revealed that in cognition, gross-motor, and fine-motor domains, the group with less severe impairments made more progress. Results were interpreted in light of constraints imposed by the measurement tools and discussed in terms of policy implications and the limitations involved in conducting quality program evaluation in early intervention.

Maternal education and maternal responsiveness as predictors of play competence in low birth weight, premature infants: a preliminary report.

Videotaped play interactions of 182 low birth weight, premature toddlers and their mothers were used to investigate whether a model including maternal responsiveness together with level of maternal education was a better predictor of play maturity scores of the children than a model consisting of education level alone. The videotapes were coded using the responsiveness subscale of the Maternal Behavior Rating Scale. Regression analyses revealed that maternal education alone significantly predicted play scores, accounting for 9% of the variance. However, the model that included both maternal responsiveness and maternal education together also significantly predicted play scores and accounted for 20% of the variance. Including responsiveness together with maternal education significantly increased the proportion of variance accounted for by maternal education alone. Implications of these findings are discussed.