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Resumen
El “Programa de apoyo psicológico materno-infantil” es una estrategia preventiva, iniciada en 1990 en un municipio de unos 20.000 habitantes. Su actuación se dirigió a todos los niños de la Comunidad entre 0 y 12 meses. Su principal objetivo era la mejora de la competencia materna promoviendo el desarrollo de las interacciones sincrónicas entre madre-hijo; de este modo se prevenía la aparición de conflictos e interacciones desajustadas que pueden desembocar en episodios de abuso. Este objetivo se lograba dando instrucciones periódicas e individualizadas a las madres acerca del desarrollo de sus hijos: de esta forma la madre se convertía en guía y coprotagonista del mismo. Se estudiaron dos facetas del programa: evolución del riesgo de maltrato y desarrollo del niño, obteniéndose resultados que pueden considerarse preliminares sobre el desarrollo del programa. Se plantean y discuten los aspectos metodológicos así como las implicaciones de estos resultados.
Abstract
The “Mother-Child Psychological Support” programme is an important preventive action, started in 1990, aimed at all infants from birth to 12 months living in a community with a population of 20.000 inhabitants. The first prevention goal was to improve maternal competence by strengthening synchronous mother-child relationship, in order to prevent conflicts and maladjusted interactions which likely precipitate child abuse episodes. This goal was achieved through monthly individualized instructions to the mother about her child's development. Thus the mother becomes co-protagonist of her child's development. Two aspects of the programme, namely maltreatment risk evolution and children's development, were studied and some preliminary results were obtained. The methodological issues and the implications of these results are discussed.
Extended Summary
The “Mother-Child Psychological Support” programme is an important preventive action, started in 1990, aimed at all infants from birth to 12 months of age living in a community with a population of 20.000 inhabitants. The first prevention goal was to improve maternal competence by strengthening synchronous mother-child relationship, in order to prevent conflicts and maladjusted interactions which likely precipitate episodes of child abuse. This goal was achieved through monthly individualized instructions to the mother about her child's development in which the mother becomes co-protagonist of her child's development.
The purpose of this paper was to report some of the results obtained with respect to two aspects of the programme: the evolution of the risk of maltreatment (study 1) and children's development measured longitudinally (study 2):
In study 1, results showed the existence of two sets of risk factors which differ in the degree in which they are susceptible to being being modified by the programme: a) structural risk factors (e.g., low birth-weight, adolescent mother); and b) functional factors regarding child-rearing patterns (maternal habits with respect to their infant's feeding, crying, tantrums, hygiene, etc.). The intervention programme focused on functional factors and statistical analyses showed that positive changes took place. After the programme, mothers expressed, through a questionnaire devised ‘ad hoc’, more competent habits. The mothers reported feeling more self-confident in their role, knowing better what to do when common child-rearing problems arose.
In study 2, Developmental Quotients (DQ = Developmental age/chronological age), using Knobloch and Pasamanick's (1977) updated and revised version of Gesell and Amatruda's test, were obtained for a group of children at the beginning of the programme and compared with their DQs at the end of the programme, when they were 12 months old. DQs were again obtained six months later in the follow-up (18 months). Two groups of children aged 12 and 18 months who had not participated in the programme were also tested, and their DQ score compared with those obtained by the experimental group. Results showed that the experimental group obtained a higher DQ score at 12 months, at the end of the programme, than at the beginning, and these differences were statistically significant. On the other hand, comparisons between 12 months DQ scores for the experimental group and control group showed that the former was higher than the latter. Similar outcomes were found for the overall DQ score between the 18 month follow-up group and the control group. Methodological issues and implications of these studies are also presented and discussed.
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