The Simple Interactions Tool: Studying the Impact of two Intervention Programs with Pre-School age Children

• In Event: The Simple Interactions Tool: Applications of a Novel Video-Coding Method for Quantifying Caregiver-Child Relationships

Abstract

Healthy relationships are characterized by certain basic qualities that allow children to learn skills that will be important throughout their life, including emotional connection and reciprocal contribution to an interaction. Children growing up with relationships that exhibit these qualities are more likely to develop into healthy, well-rounded adults, whereas children growing up experiencing extreme adversity, such as abuse, neglect, and poverty are at increased risk for low achievement and poorer health in life. This is especially true among children who lack supportive relationships with caring adults. The impact of two newly developed intervention programs to support strong caregiver-child interactions was assessed with two populations of preschool children. In the first study, 91 3-5 year old child-parent dyads utilizing publicly available social services to access food, housing, clothing and preschool programming for their children (35% living at or below the level qualifying for food and housing assistance) were studied. Parent-child interactions were scored from a 10-min video of a play session, using the quantitative modification of the Simple Interactions Tool. After baseline measures were collected 67 parents participated in four 1.5 hour education sessions using the Working For Kids: Building Skills educational materials to learn about the importance of experiences in shaping the brain and promote supportive interactions to foster sturdy brain development, and 24 parents received treatment as usual from the social service agencies. The measures listed above were collected again at 6 and 12 mo. after baseline. We found that in the treatment group, dyads who had lower levels of reciprocity at baseline showed significant improvement in reciprocity one year after the education program (Reciprocity: rho=-0.61, p<0.001), whereas this relationship was not seen in the control dyads. To reinforce the lessons taught in the education program, caregivers requested advice on activities that could be done with their children to strengthen developmental skills. We felt cooperative games offered an ideal framework for such an additional intervention. To this end we created the First Pathways Game, a free online game with over 250 cooperative age-appropriate activities for children (ages birth-8 years of age) and adults to play together. These cooperative activities each target specific brain pathways regulating various skills including communication, problem-solving and social emotional skills, as well as motor skills, math skills and early science learning. In a second study, caregiver-child interactions were studied in 16 parent-child dyads (children from 0-5 years of age) recruited at a local social service agency, who were taught to play the game and did so regularly for a one-month period of time. A 10-min play session with caregivers and children was videotaped at baseline and after one month of playing the game. There were very significant correlations between baseline measures of Connection (rho=-0.81, p<0.001) and Reciprocity (rho=-0.59, p=0.02) at Visit 1 with the change in interaction scores at Visit 2. These findings provide strong evidence of the usefulness of the Simple Interactions Tool for studying the effectiveness of intervention programs for preschool children.

Authors

• Judy L Cameron, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Madison Very, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patrick Healy, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amelia Potter, University of Calgary
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jelena Komanchuk, University of Calgary (U of C)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lani Vargas, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sachi Penha, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julianne Wanner, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sai Bhatte, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Delaney Jones, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Allyson Letavic, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicole Letourneau, University of Calgary (U of C)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeanette Trauth, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author