No abstract

Despite an emphasis on family-centered practices in early intervention, the translation of this philosophy into practice is unclear. We, therefore, measured practices of 250 early intervention service providers in Spain, with the Families in Natural Environments Scale of Service Evaluation. We analyzed the “difficulty” of practices, through Rasch analysis, and reasons for the discrepancy between typical and ideal practices, through qualitative analysis. Results showed that the typical high-quality practices were working with families and demonstrating strategies, whereas the typical low-quality practices were identifying family supports and letting the family set the agenda for the home visit. Lack of training was the most frequently reported reason for the discrepancy. Rasch analyses showed that the items participants were most likely to score low were identifying family supports, addressing families’ satisfaction with routines, and letting families set the agenda for the visit.

One hundred and fifty-five mothers of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) completed a semi-structured interview, the Parenting Stress Index Questionnaire (Abidin, 1990), to evaluate parenting stress. The Parenting Scale (Arnold, O'Leary, Wolff & Acker, 1993) was also administered to measure dysfunctional discipline strategies. Structural equation modeling was used to test a model in which the independent variables were the Child's Characteristics and the Socio-Educational Status of his or her family; intermediate variables were Parenting Stress concerning the Child Domain and concerning the Parent Domain; and the dependent variable was Parental Discipline. The results confirm our hypotheses. Interventions in these families should therefore incorporate a component focused on Parenting Stress (in both the Child Domain and the Parent Domain), as a determinant of Parental Discipline.

But currently a consensus about this topic and studies concerning the delinquents are still missing: An analysis of more than 100 expert testimonies should redress this deficiency. Methods: Amongst others the data was collected with the PCL-R, HCR-20, SVR-20 and the Static 99. Results: The data indicates that the inmates are part of a high risk population. Most are social desintegrated; some of them show noticeable personality problems or personality disorders. This indicates an overlap between preventive detention and the treatment possibilities of forensic psychiatric hospitals. This requires careful diagnostic and criminal prognostic proceedings, but in a large number of expert testimonies the diagnostic and criminal prognostic approach remained unclear. Psychiatrists dońt use standardized prognostic tools, which leads to the loss of relevant information. Conclusion: The use of especially prognostic instruments can enrich the information content of expert testimonies in the context of preventive detention. Thus they can serve as a tool to assure the quality of the expert opinion.