TAILORING SERVICES TO FOSTER INFANTS' NEEDS

长期的研究目标包括根据寄养儿童的个人需要定制治疗。为此，本研究计划的具体目的是定义进入寄养系统的儿童的子群体差异，开发适合不同子群体特定需求的服务，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，对生物行为功能和特定行为交易的评估对定义亚群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具体功能缺陷的理解。儿童进入寄养的年龄不同，寄养经历也不同；随后，他们有了敏感性不同的代理照顾者。目前的研究表明，即使对婴儿来说，年龄和代理照顾者的敏感性也很重要。根据年龄和照顾者的敏感性大致区分的儿童亚组预计将被确定为具有不同需求并需要不同类型和剂量的治疗。如果服务的目标是寄养父母/儿童的特定功能缺陷，预计将是最有效的。因此，将开发和改进服务，以适应这些人的特殊需要。一个试点项目将评估针对寄养婴儿及其代理父母的具体确定的需要提供量身定制服务的有效性。

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.