IPCI! Indicator of Parent-Child Interaction

A Practitioner-Friendly Tool for Monitoring Progress in Parent-Child Interaction

www.challengingbehavior.org

Judith Carta & Kathleen BaggettJuniper Gardens Children’s Project

www.igdi.ku.edu

Goals today

Tell you what IPCIs are.

Describe how they are used.

Discuss practice void that IPCIs fill.

Describe preliminary efforts at scaling up their use.

How can we identify the youngest children with challenging behaviors?

Ask parents and caregivers

Observe in naturalistic situations

Set up natural opportunities for interaction and observe

We need to know about caregivers’ behavior too.

Caregivers’ behavior often sets the occasion for children’s behavior

Caregivers provide a critical context for their children’s development. High-risk interactions Supportive/facilitative behavior

Enhancing caregivers’ responsiveness is often an important target for intervention

Easy-to-use: to screen and identify at-risk interactions with very young children

Quick and repeatable: to allow for progress monitoring in the context of interventions

Easily trained: So interventionists from varying disciplines can use them efficiently and communicate with each other

Traditional psychometric properties

What Features Are Needed in an Indicator of Earliest Interactions?

What is the IPCI?

An experimental measure of parent-child interaction

Being field-tested and refined to screen & monitor

parent-child interaction

For use by early interventionists such as:

>Part-C EI Teachers

>Early Head Start Advocates

>Social Workers

>Home Visiting Nurses

What does the IPCI Measure?

Parent Behavior

Child Behavior

Dyadic Behavior

How is IPCI administered?

In family homes or other caregiving settings (centers, foster homes)

4 semi-structured authentic activities are observed for a total of 10 minutes

14 items are rated on a 4-point scale for relative frequency (following observation)

Videotaping is not required (except for intervention purposes)

What Activities are Observed?

Free Play (4 minutes)

Book Reading (2 minutes)

Distraction Task (2 minutes)

Dressing (2 minutes)

- ‘Whatever you & your child love to do together’

Mail Free Play Getting Mail.mpg

Free Play

Dressing: ‘What it’s like to get your child dressed’

Video ClipVideo Clip

Looking at Books: However you and child

would like to use these books’ ‘

Looking at Books.wmvVideo Clip

Distraction Task

‘Please stay on the blanket with your child and keep child away from recorder’

IPCI Parent & Child Domains

Parental Caregiver Domains Facilitators Interrupters

Child Domains Engagement Distress

IPCI Child Domains

Child Engagement

Positive Feedback

Sustained Engagement

Follow-Through

Child Distress

Overwhelmed by negative affect (fussing, whining, crying, difficult-to-read signals)

Externalizing behavior (tantrum)

Frozen, Watchful, Withdrawn

Initial Scaling Up Efforts

Website

Funding from Early Head Start in KS and Mo to scale up use statewide

Funding from ACF to explore use of IPCI by programs and practitioners

Funding from OSEP to compare web-based versus in-person training

The IGDI Website: ww.igdi.ku.edu

Use of Indicators Can Lead to Improvements in Intervention

Can help practitioners know more quickly when a change is necessaryCan help administrative staff understand when programs need improvements

Types of IPCI Reports

Interventionists and Supervisors Assessor certification and use Child and Family Background Domain Reports Essential Element Reports

Program Administrator

Agency Administrator

Uses for Interventionist Reports

Progress monitoring

Guiding intervention with families

Sharing data with parents

Reflective supervision

Mental health consultation

Child Engagement

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41

Age (Months)

% o

f Chil

d En

gage

men

t

Graph to show parentsPlacement is similar to WTC graph

Mean Child Engagement Concern

Caregiver Facilitators

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41

Age (Months)

% o

f Car

egiv

er F

acili

tato

rs

Engagement & Facilitators to be shown to parentsPlacement on site is similar to WTC graph

Mean Caregiver Facilitators Caution Concern

Uses for Program and Agency Administrator Reports

Reporting program staff involvement in progress monitoring

Reporting frequency of program monitoring and number of families involved

Reporting the difference in the number of children and parents whose interactions are at above benchmark following particular program-wide interventions

Reporting the difference in number of children and parents whose interactions are at or above benchmark at the end of a program as compared to at entry

Conclusion

We expect IPCIs will be useful to: screen for high-risk dyads monitor progress in dyadic

interventions

We expect that stronger “interventionist-friendly” measures will lead to more effective interventions.