“Potentially” contaminating behavioural practices in the preparation, feeding and storage of “ogi” — an infant cereal in a rural Nigerian community

Thirty households with children aged 6-18 months from four villages in the Badagry Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria were studied. Open-ended unstructured ethnographic interviews were used to collect information on “potentially” contaminating food handling behaviour with particular reference to the preparation, feeding and storage of “ogi” an infant cereal. Focus group studies were conducted for women aged 18-45 years in the four villages to obtain more information.

Improper handwashing, widespread acceptance and use of feeding bottles, long storage and safety of place of storage were some of the “potentially” contaminating behavioural patterns identified.

Intensive health education on the dangers of feeding bottles, improper hand-washing and long storage of cooked “ogi” to the health of infants and young children is strongly recommended.     

Teaching art appreciation in the nursery school -- it's relevance for 3 and 4 year olds

This article, a report on recent research, draws attention to the positive response shown by nursery school children to art appreciation when it was introduced into their curriculum.

It explains how art appreciation was integrated into an intercurriculum approach and “taught” through activities that are a normal part of a nursery school day viz. mime, movement, telling stories, expressing feelings, games and puzzles. The method and content of each session is outlined and findings reported. It is noted how art appreciation allows for reflective and physical participation, cognitive growth, observation, the development of vocabulary, and can lead to children responding to paintings sensitively yet critically -- many four year olds can “spot” stylistic similarities and make cross references between paintings.

As art appreciation is a useful means to learning and children find it an enjoyable activity, it would be beneficial if it was “written-in” to the forthcoming National Curriculum document for art education.     

The efficacy of the parent-teacher “partnership” of the 1990s

The 1990s are times of rapid social and technological change. There are many unknowns that face both adults and children. We all have problems that need resolution. The time when adults “knew” the answers and children learned by “watching” echo faintly in the whirl of scientific change which is impacting on most aspects of our daily life. As early childhood teachers we have to learn to enquire, to listen, to think together with children, their families and society. The concept of negotiation is central to communication while the basic tenet of the process focusses not on the person but the issue. It is in these times of rapid change that we need to deepen our understanding of the family and further our professional insights by “tapping” the wealth of crucial kndowledge that parents have about their children. Hurst asserts that the partnership of parents in issues of their children's education:

“is probably the greatest single opportunity for educational advance open to teachers today”.

Hurst: 1987; 109     

Art development and play

There exists a considerable international body of research and theory into children's art development. Art education is generally considered to proceed through a sequential series of stages beginning with the earliest scribbles. This paper seeks to link alternative sources of knowledge deriving from the theory and research into the studies of the development of perceptual awareness. These are modes by which children take in sensory impressions and come to know the world around them. The content of these sensory impressions is culturally linked and becomes the raw material for the symbols and images that the children know and make.

There is also a significant body of recent research into levels of children's play which should be evaluated in relation to what it can tell teachers and parents about optimal ways to ensure the circumstances that enhance children's long term development. The case for play as we now know it says that it is not valid to believe that any play will do. Qualitatively different levels of play have been shown to have different values for children. “Guided play” or “stretching play” has been shown to be positively associated with play with adults as partners or companions. Play with art materials has also been associated with higher levels of stretching play. The adult partner's role has been found to provide the “scaffolding” to which these higher levels of play are linked.

These findings on play, together with the social patterns whereby more young children are in group play programs raises the curriculum implications for teachers and care givers. These adults moderate the sensory and social experiences and the curriculum materials provided for children during the day. Teachers need to be aware of providing the partnerships in play with art materials, the need to encourage children's interest in sensory experiences and the processes whereby children learn through their hands as well as their eyes. The environment of play program is also important. The quality of the visual environment, the quality of design of play materials and all equipment with which young children have daily contact have their aesthetic influence. Program factors also include the conscious provision of an art curriculum, with regular visits to Art Galleries and Art Museums, as well as opportunities for free play in parks and gardens.     

Children first: Protection & prevention in services for disabled children part II

SYNOPSIS

This paper is written in two parts.

Part I outlined the legislative and social economic contexts. A framework for analysing prevention and protection services for handicapped children was then presented. This framework was illustrated in relation to services at four levels of intervention: populations, early risks, significant harm and children already abused or “looked after”.     

The “syndrome of the post-premature child”: a study of its significance -- Part I

Prematurity has the greatest influence upon frequency and degree of mechanical disturbances uncovered by the Test of Imitation of Gestures. The authors look for the significance of this syndrome at various levels:

1. Possible organic damage to the central nervous system structures, through the tonic and motor disturbances checked out by the neurological examination.
2. In the disturbances of the early development of posturomotor abilities.
3. Deviant and delayed development of the cognitive factors (spatial and temporal structuring).
4. Emotional and relationship development.

The investigations were carried out on a sample group of prematurely born children and a control group group of children born at term.

After observing certain behavior disorders which occur among normal children -- mild disorders which become less obvious with age -- the authors show that frequent and gross disturbances which appear in the first months of life and persist beyond the age of 6 years distinguish the premature child. In this same group, however, delays in mental development noted early in life often disappear entirely by the age of 4 years, even among children who were born very prematurely.

The authors then isolated the most typical disturbances found among the premature children, with stress on factors of pathology, maturation, adjustment, and environment.

The authors study the relationship between the disturbances described above and the various aspects of the neurological examinations which enable them to objectify the dynamic factors of the body adjustment to the external world and to other people. The hypothesis that a fundamental relationship exists between disturbances of adjustment and the genesis of the “post-premature child syndrome”, develops from the comparison between the psychological and neurological data in their longitudinal evolution.

Commenting on the relevance of these findings for the care of premature children, the authors stress the value of motor training and remedial education for overcoming the disturbances of spatial structuration and body schema.     

Some implications for the child's educational potential of recent investigations into early childhood interaction

The primary object of this paper is to suggest that recent investigations into early childhood, and particularly those concerned with adult-child interaction, are indicating what amounts to a new view of the cognitive nature of the young child. The paper will also begin to examine some of the evidence which may link this view with the development of his educational potential.

Babies are born, it seems, with highly developed perceptual systems and with inherited propensities to take part in interaction with other humans, especially the principal caring adult (who, for convenience is referred to as “the mother” throughout the paper). They can time their behaviour so as to interact in complex sequences. Moreover the baby displays initiative in interaction and by this means sets about learning about his world, especially the meaning of his social world.

Because this interaction is dependent on complex signalling, including the synchronisation of sequences of behaviour with those of others, it is probable that it can be very easily disrupted. Such disruption can occur in many ways: for instance physiologically, by minor brain damage, or socially, by the child trying to interact with an unresponsive depressed mother. Most easily lost would be the child's initiative and hence the power to direct the interaction process in his quest to make sense of his world.

It may be on this level that a child's cognitive potential is reduced. Perhaps the child's loss of initiative is a connecting factor between educational handicap and the social-cultural correlates variously identified within an extensive literature.     

South Australian Parents want Child Protection Programs to be offered in Schools and PreSchools

It is now widely realized that child sexual abuse is an all too common crime against children, resulting in long term damage to victims and heavy costs to the community. It is also realized that much abuse could have been prevented if children had been given basic information about acceptable and unacceptable touching, secrecy about touching and norms of adult-child behaviour.

Parents representing 250 families, caring for 565 children aged 3-12 were interviewed to find out what parents tell their children to protect them from sexual molestation.

Three quarters of all parents told their children nothing and most of those who thought that they had given information had only given hints. Furthermore, this “information” was passed on only after a traumatic event had already occurred.

Parents revealed an inadequate knowledge of the dangers to children and a desire for school and preschool programs to remedy the deficit.     

Some aspects of mother-child relationships following the birth of twins

In the outline of a research program on the process through which mothers of twins begin to make a differentiation between their children and succeed or do not succeed in individualizing each of them, we have undertaken a preliminary study to get closer to the psychological and social questions mothers have to face in the first weeks after the birth.

We followed up five triads mother-twins at the maternity unit and at home for the first three months. The observations of children's behaviour, babies' material environment, and of mother's behaviour as well as mothers interviews have brought evidence of the complexity and specificity of such a situation.

We have shown that the overloading of the nursing tasks obliges the mother to adopt a precise organization in which she cares not to favour one of the twins to the detriment of the other. Furthermore the mothers feel they will never be able to satisfy each child fully, despite those true “egalitarian strategies”.

To those behaviours which consist of “doing the same thing” with both babies, an individualized representation of each child opposes itself very early in the mother's speech.

This lag between the differentiating maternal representation and the maternal behaviour that tends to cancel such a differentiation allows us to suppose there exists a double process: the necessity of individualizing the twins and the desire to confound them in one unit.     

The paradox of “wonderful children”: The case of child abuse

In our society young children are generally considered to be “wonderful”. This dominant concept pervades not only parental thinking, but professional thinking as well. In the case of child abuse, however, profound contradictions can arise as a result. Professionals are primarily focused on children's welfare, while parents' views are much more ambiguous.

In our example of a Family Centre these contradictions are clearly illustrated, and we hope to draw conclusions as to what change in theory and practice could result from an analysis of contradictions.     

Prosocial Behaviors of Handicapped and Typical Peers In An Integrated Preschool

This Study explores initiations of prosocial actions by mainstreamed handicapped and normal preschoolers to discover:

1. which preschool activity setting was more conducive to prosocial interactions.
2. which specific prosocial bids were more likely to occur in which setting.
3. whether frequency of prosocial behaviors was related to directionality, since typical children are reported to choose interactions with typical rather than atypical peers preferentially.
4. what proportion of prosocial behaviors were child initiated rather than teacher directed.

Six types of prosocial bids were recorded for 10 typical and 5 special (4 autistic, 1 multiply handicapped) children (mean age 4-4 years) in 4 activity settings (80 total minutes per child). Setting had a significant effect. Most of the 210 prosocial bids occurred during free play, many during structured play and gym, and the fewest during teacher-directed structured circle time. Sharing, cooperating and helping were the most frequent prosocial behaviors. Sympathy and praise were rare; no nurturing was observed.

No directionality preferences were found. Typical children initiated twice as many prosocial bids (X=20) as atypical peers (X=10-2). Taking into account the expected probabilities for interactions given the significantly different prosocial activity levels for each group and the different numbers of children per group, no preferences or “prejudices” were found.

Contact alone with typical children does not build interpersonal skills of atypical children. Teachers and therapists must specifically model and facilitate prosocial skills.     

“Missing Milestones”

Missing milestones are known to be a normal variant of development. The purpose of our study is to find if missing milestones always lead to normal development?

METHODS

This is a prospective case study on seven patients referred for motor developmental problems from July 1997 to February 1998 and then followed over a 2-year period. On each attendance, the multi-disciplinary team assessed children

RESULTS

We present a case series of seven children with “missing motor milestones”. Six of the seven, had tactile defensiveness but absent parachute reflexes on presentation

At the end of the two year period, 3 infants had normal development (Group I). One was discharged after 7 months. The second one had speech problems most likely secondary to her bilateral serous otitis media, with no other developmental problems. The third child acquired age appropriate milestones before the care was transferred to another hospital. Of the four in Group II, three developed global developmental delay and the fourth was diagnosed to have multiple cavernous haemangiomata in the brain. The pre-school alert panel was alerted for two of them possibly needing future help in school

Five of the seven children in our study were still being followed up after two years

CONCLUSIONS

Missing milestones in a subject can be a benign variation of normal motor development. However, they may also be the first sign to appear in children with neuro-developmental disorders

Tactile defensiveness may be the most useful early sign to enable the early diagnosis of non-weight bearing children with 'missing milestones'     

Developmental awareness and moral stage development in child Abuse

In an attempt to better understand why children who have been sexually assaulted commonly fail to reveal their victimization to parents or other adults, a study was undertaken in which the “engagement strategies” of 41 perpetrators were examined, exploring common rationalizations, threats, etc. aimed at insuring continued silence on the part of the victim. The “appeal” for silence offered by the perpetrator to the child was analyzed according to Kohlberg's stages of moral development.

Results indicate that perpetrators appear to alter their engagement strategies to coincide with the developmental level of the child, thus further insuring silence by appealing to criteria for assessing “appropriate” or “inappropriate” behaviors (eg. sexual contact) which are developmentally consistent with the child's level of cognition and moral reasoning.     

The Education Welfare Service -A Naswe Perspective

NASWE members have a professional Code of Principles and Practice and work to protect the rights of children and young people in education. This is more simply expressed by the NASWE motto “For every child a chance”. In this submission “The Education Welfare Service” we, as members of Executive Committee of NASWE have presented an overview of the EWS giving its historical background and ongoing development including adapting to changes in Child Care legislation. The submission provides a policy statement containing aims and objectives and examines the role of die EWS and the duties undertaken by it. It gives the legal framework from which die service operates. The impact of die recent implementation of the Children (M) Order 1995 has been reviewed under the headings of legislation, partnership and initiatives.

It is hoped that this submission will help in some way to promote the EWS and raise awareness of its function in die wider field of Child Care practice generally     

International year of the family 1994: Family and gender equity in education

“Building the smallest democracy at the heart of society,” is the motto of the International Year of the Family being celebrated during 1994. The year 1994 has been designated by the United Nations to highlight issues concerning families locally, nationally, and globally during the year and to suggest recommendations for changes in policies and programs.

Since 1975, when the world celebrated International Women's Year, and again, in 1979 during International Year of the Child, evidence has been accruing regarding gender disparities in all countries. It is discouraging, yet perhaps not surprising, that in 1994 the world still awaits gender equity, even though a considerable amount of progress has been made since 1975.     

A Shoestring Operation for Sexually Abused Children

The title of this paper refers to how resources were gathered to provide a therapy group for latency aged children who had been sexually abused. In one way it is a sad commentary on how society treats children who have been victimized; on the other hand, this account shows how volunteers with a will can harness the energies of social agencies to help provide a needed service that was not yet established. The history of social work is replete with accounts of generous individuals who stepped forward to do the necessary. Social work, like nursing, had its origins in volunteerism.¹ Even today lacunae in public welfare are filled by volunteers, and while not all efforts become institutionalized the trend toward innovation and compassion is still strong in contemporary society (Newsweek, “A 51 Gun Salute to Everyday heroes” pp 62-79 July 6 1987).

Within the profession, there are always fields of service that are on the cutting edge of human needs—witness industrial social work, divorce mediation, services to lesbian/gay clients, AlDs victims, etc. Often these special programs, or the recognition of special populations within an agency's service area are first made by employed professionals within the agency. If the innovative professional has success, the program or method is gradually extended to other agencies and finally adopted by the government. While the connection between individual innovation and public policy is too complex to be described here, it is sufficient to say that the current American program of AFDC had its origins from the experience of juvenile court judges who were faced with the prospect of removing dependent children from their widowed mother. The common sense of these officials and other child advocates saw the wisdom of preserving the family at state expense (Trattner, 1974, pp 185-186).

Whether the situation is that of orphaned or abused children, the process is slow that defines the fact into a social problem. Sometimes, without much fanfare or rhetoric, an individual professional or a volunteer will attempt a remedy either with spontaneous effort or a small scale program. These small efforts can emerge despite the bureauracy that controls the bulk of public welfare; sometimes the new remedy becomes part of received wisdom and public policy. Whether it is continued or not the program has responded to human need in a changing world. Social work in industry, among refugees, displaced homemakers, gay people are some of the instances in which small scale operations came before “public” help.

The problem of sexually abused children has been around a long time; any kind of sexual activity with a child is harmful (Conte 1981, pp 601-602.). An unknown number of child victims grow up without psychological help that could prevent painful memories as an adult. It was to prevent this emotional scaring that the “shoestring operation” was launched.     

Ethical and practical considerations in palliative child care and the support needs of parents and siblings

Death is one of the few certainties in life and yet it is the one event that most people avoid contemplating until forced to do so. When considering death and dying it is assumed by most to occur in old age and in hospital. The death of a child is a devastating loss which can cause the most distressing and long lasting grief (Davey, 1995). According to “Childhood cancer UK” the number of children developing cancer in the United Kingdom has remained constant over the past 30 years (about 1300 new cases each year), with only two-thirds of children with the disease being treated successfully. In Britain 32 per cent of cancer deaths occur at home (Bean, 1994) however only a small proportion of these will be children. Despite the deaths of children at home being a statistically small group it must not be ignored due to the great emotional impact it has on the individual, family, health workers and often local community.

The changing status of children in the UK means that health care professionals must uphold childrens' rights whilst working in partnership with parents. A balance must be found between the traditional protectionist and paternalistic attitude of care and the liberationist approach. This can only be achieved through communication and collaboration between families and members of the multi-disciplinary team allowing the promotion of constructive problem solving

The key aim of palliative care is to give the child as good a quality of life as possible in the time remaining with freedom from distressing symptoms including pain. Every health professional working with a dying child who has pain should give consideration to the complexity of pain, it's unique and diverse effects and engage the entire family and health care team in planning interventions and providing support to the child and to each family member (Graner, 1976).

Siblings, parents and health professionals may be profoundly affected by the experience of the death of the child, therefore, each multi-disciplinary team must develop formal coping strategies to deal with the possible psychological disturbance and to facilitate adjustment after the death of the child.

Martinson, writes of her greatest encouragement which came from the parent of a dying child;

“No matter if it culminates a full life or a life shortened much too soon, does death have to be terrorising? There are many to rejoice and aid in the event of birth, as with the patient that can be helped, but for those going through the frustration of 'not getting better' when science and the masses, sometimes even family and friends who can no longer face them, have deserted, could there be a greater challenge or more considerable need for help?”

(1976, p. 13)

This is a powerful message for health professionals caring for children in the end stages of a terminal illness. It is at this time that the family and dying child are in most need of the consistent, expert and humane relationships provided by the caring professions. The challenges are immense but great reward lies in the privilege of being intimately involved in this final rite of passage through life.     

Parent-teacher involvement benefits everyone

Most educators accept that active involvement of parents in their children's education improves children's development and their academic success. Strong family backgrounds — i.e., the mother's education#shemployment focuses on school-type skills that are used to teach the children and the father encourages learning — influence high academic success for children. The roles parents assume in their children's education are key to children's overall development and achievements. Parents, involved as “teachers,” policy-makers, partners with school staff, and community liaisons, enable schools to address the developmental needs of their children. With improved preparation, teachers can be taught to work with parents and use them as allies in promoting their children's growth and development. They learn to encourage parents to provide good educational environments at home for their children and to teach them in out-of-school settings. As school personnel form partnerships with children's parents — everyone will benefit: parents expand their horizons by sharpening their own skills, their children achieve and seem to like learning, teachers seem to affect children's learning with less difficulty and behavior problems, and the entire community improves.     

IMeonate-mother interaction: tactile contacts in the days following birth

The analysis of tactile contacts in the days following birth was conducted on the basis of observations of maternal behaviour in a natural situation #opduring the exchanges associated with the feeding of the new baby#cp.

This behaviour recorded by video, among 42 mothers — full term baby couples and 19 mothers — premature baby couples, allowed us to describe the “pattern manipulatoire des meres apres la naissance”. Different categories of contacts were distinguished according to the parts of the baby's body involved #oplimbs, face, trunk, clothing#cp and the apparent intention (so-called “utilitarian” contacts and contacts “not absolutely necessary for feeding”). No significant difference was found in the frequency of these contacts as a result of the order of birth, the term or age of the baby. On the other hand, a greater frequency of tactile contacts was shown with baby girls than with baby boys.

These data allow, within the framework of a wider study of the first corporal interactions, questioning of the significance to accord to this quite specific pattern.