TAILORING SERVICES TO FOSTER INFANTS' NEEDS

长期研究目标包括针对寄养儿童的个人需求量身定做治疗。为此，这项拟议的研究方案的具体目标是确定进入寄养系统的儿童之间的亚群区别，开发适合不同亚群的特定需求的服务，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应用于对儿童功能的评估，对生物行为功能和具体行为交易的评估对于确定亚组和评估干预效果至关重要。提出的研究方案试图加深我们对寄养儿童S具体功能缺陷的理解。儿童在不同的年龄和不同的照顾史进入寄养家庭；随后他们有不同的敏感程度的代理照顾者。目前的研究表明，即使对婴儿来说，安置时的年龄和代孕照顾者的敏感性也很重要。根据年龄和照顾者敏感性大致区分的儿童亚群，预计将被确定为具有不同需求和需要不同类型和剂量的治疗。如果服务针对寄养父母/孩子二人组的特定功能缺陷，预计将是最有效的。因此，将开发和改进服务，以满足这些二人组的特定需求。一个试点项目将评估为寄养婴儿及其代孕父母特别确定的需求量身定做服务的有效性。

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.