Public Policy Early intervention efforts and public policy

Public Policy Early intervention efforts and public policy Adolescent intervention efforts and public policy Primary prevention of psychopathology and public policy—working toward a just society

Early Childhood Intervention and Public Policy (Zigler) Early efforts in the 1960’s Reliance on deficit model White, middle-class values superior to minority, lower-class values Teach white, middle-class values to others who lack them Boost IQ Inoculate children early in development More recent efforts Reliance on differences model All children from all backgrounds have strengths and weaknesses Low SES children more creative Middle SES children perform better on conventional achievement tests Parent involvement– participative ownership which results in a feeling of empowerment Improve social competence, not simply boost IQ to inoculate against early deprivation

Physical health—weight, illnesses, head circumference, etc. Formal cognition Achievement Motivational and emotional variables Improve community response to problems associated with poverty Make intervention continuous rather than contained within critical period Program evaluation of Head Start Early efforts to evaluate Head Start Short-term boost of IQ Attributes to motivational changes that did not boost intelligence but rather IQ test scores

Later efforts to evaluate Head Start Evaluation of social competence Community changes Family changes—in siblings and parents (diffusion effect) Cost-benefit analysis– how much intervention costs versus how much it saves taxpayers “How long would the child have to watch Sesame Street to get his teeth filled? ” (p. 901) (1, 600 for 60 c per child) Difficulties with multi-site studies Comparison of programs difficult because no quality control Differences in populations served Differences in rigor and method of data collection Differences in control subjects, who perform better at Time 1 than Head Start subjects (nonrandomized) Conduct high-quality, smaller evaluations, then conduct metaanalysis of data

Future needs for Head Start and other early interventions programs Maintain quality of staff Maintain staff/child ratios Provide day-long care for working, single mothers Extend services earlier in child’s life “experimenting society”– empirically assessing and validating early intervention programs (cf. IDP Study)

Adolescent Intervention and Public Policy (Hobbs) Two emphases in studies of development Biological, maturational unfolding of behavior Unique importance of early development within critical period Effects of second emphasis on early intervention Attempts to “inoculate” kids within crucial critical period Negligence of development later in lifespan, particularly adolescence Attempts at vocational job training rather than true education of traditional academic skills– reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic Remedial placements produced self-fulfilling prophecie of failure

Recent attempts to demonstrate efficacy of adolescent intervention Creative attempts to intervene with adolescents who have experienced early deprivation to teach academic skills Intelligence may not necessarily decline after adolescence Formal schooling in adolescence can affect problemsolving ability, whereas earlier Piagetian stages of cognitive development are always achieved Feyerstein has demonstrated remediation of cognitive deficits in adolescents labeled developmentally delayed or “retarded”

Policy recommendations Teach delayed adolescents cognitive and academic skills in nontraditional settings Evaluate these programs to assess efficacy, both short and long-term

Primary Prevention of Psychopathology and Public Policy —Working Toward a Just Society (Albee) Primary prevention efforts have followed public health strategies Difficulty in appropriating these strategies because psychopathology is difficult to define, assess improvement Psychiatry has called for identification of specific organic cause of each mental illness to prevent psychopathology Mental-illness definitions are variables (e. g. , changes made in DSM)

Mental illness is highly associated with social conditions Racism Sexism Powerlessness Poverty Hopelessness Ageism Abuse Prevention conducted through stress reduction, increased self-esteem, mutual support groups, and community organization Work toward reducing poverty, disease, and powerlessness first

Obstacles to working toward a just society Belief in just world Social Darwinism Fatalistic view Meaningless existence—inaction Meaningless existence—make our own meaning Problems with this view Scapegoating religion Exonerating fatalists Overlooking mediating and moderating variables of social conditions (e. g. , attachment) Can we make a difference within a capitalistic economic system?