TAILORING SERVICES TO FOSTER INFANTS' NEEDS

长期的研究目标包括针对寄养儿童的个人需要进行治疗。 为此，本研究计划的具体目标是确定进入寄养系统的儿童之间的亚组区别，开发适合不同亚组特定需求的服务，并评估服务的有效性。 神经科学和发展心理学的最新进展将对儿童功能的评估产生影响，生物行为功能和特定行为交易的评估对定义亚组和评估干预效果至关重要。拟议的研究计划试图完善我们对寄养儿童特定功能缺陷的理解。儿童在不同的年龄进入寄养家庭，并有不同的寄养历史;随后，他们有敏感性不同的代理照顾者。 目前的研究表明，即使是婴儿，年龄在安置和代理照顾者的敏感性问题。 儿童的亚组，大致按年龄和照顾者的敏感性区分，预计将被确定有不同的需求，需要不同类型和剂量的治疗。如果服务针对养父母/子女二人组的具体功能缺陷，则预期服务将最为有效。因此，将开发和完善服务，以适应这些二元组的特殊需求。 一个试点项目将评估针对寄养婴儿及其代理父母的具体需求提供定制服务的有效性。

Long term research goals involve tailoring treatment to the individual needs of children in foster care. To this end, the specific aims of this proposed research program are to define subgroup distinctions among children who enter the foster care system, develop services appropriate to the specific needs of different subgroups, and assess the effectiveness of the services. Recent advances in neuroscience and developmental psychology will be brought to bear on the assessment of child functioning, with assessments of biobehavioral functioning and of specific behavioral transactions critical to defining subgroups and assessing intervention effects. The proposed program of research attempts to refine our understanding of foster children s specific functioning deficits. Children enter foster care at different ages, and with different caregiving histories; subsequently they have surrogate caregivers who differ in sensitivity. Current research indicates that even for infants, age at placement and sensitivity of the surrogate caregivers matter. Subgroups of children, differentiated roughly by age and caregiver sensitivity, are expected to be identified that have different needs and require different types and dosages of treatment. Services are expected to be most effective if they target the specific functional deficit of a foster parent/child dyad. Therefore, services will be developed and refined that are tailored to the particular needs of these dyads. A pilot project will assess the effectiveness of tailoring services to specifically identified needs of foster infants and their surrogate parents.