Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Attachment-Focused Intervention in Preschool Children With FASD

Attachment classified using Ainsworth's Strange Situation protocol: Secure, Anxious-Insecure, Anxious-Avoidant, Avoidant, Disorganized.

A self-report measure of dysfunctional parenting practices including laxness, over-reactivity, and verbosity. The scale has good internal consistency and test-restest reliability and scores are consistent with other measures of dysfunctional discipline and child misbehaviour.

Each subscale score, ranges from 1 to 7; for each subscale (Laxness, Overreactivity, Verbosity) lower values indicate a lower degree of self-perceived ineffective parenting behaviors and higher values indicate a greater degree of self perceived ineffective parenting behaviours. The total score is calculated from a combination of each subscale and also ranges from 1 to 7, reflecting the degree of ineffective parenting behaviours across all categories with lower values indicate a lower degree of self-perceived ineffective parenting behaviors and higher values indicate a greater degree of self perceived ineffective parenting behaviours.

A parent-report questionnaire of parental stress reflecting parent-child interaction style and difficult child behaviour. There are two main domain scores, a Child Domain Score and Parent Domain Score from which a Total Stress Score is calculated.

Child and Parent Domain raw scores combine to form a Total Stress raw score. Higher scores for each item indicate a higher degree of negative attributes in the given scale while lower scores indicate lower relationship stress and a greater sense of enjoyment in the relationship.

Items include:

Defensive Responding (DR) Score range 7-35 Parental Distress (PD) Score range 12-60 Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction (PCDI) Score range 12-60 Difficult Child (DC) Score range 12-60 PSI Total Stress Score range 36-180

A self-report measure of depression, anxiety, and stress. The scales of the DASS show high internal consistency and produce meaningful discriminations in different settings, and are appropriate for measuring the emotional states of caregivers over time.

The score for each item ranges from 0 to 3, where 0 indicates "did not apply to me at all" and 3 indicates "applied to me very much, or most of the time". The individual items are combined using a scoring template into measures of Depression (D), Anxiety (A), and Stress (S). Depression is scored out of 28 where 0-9 is normal and 10-28 reflect mild, moderate, and severe degrees of depression. Anxiety is scored out of 20 where 0-7 is normal and 8-20 reflect mild, moderate, and severe degrees of anxiety. Stress is scored out of 34 where 0-14 is normal and 15-34 reflect mild, moderate, and severe degrees of stress.

The Emotional Symptoms (SDQ-ES), Conduct Problems (SDQ-CP), Hyperactivity (SDQ-HA), Peer Problems (SDQ-PP), and Prosocial (SDQ-PS) Scales each range from 0-10 Higher values in (ES, CP, HA, and PP) indicate a greater degree of abnormal behavior; low values indicate more normative behavior. For the PS scale, higher values indicate greater strengths in prosocial behaviour and lower values indicate more difficulties with prosocial behavior. A Total Difficulties Score ranges from 0 to 40 with higher scores reflecting higher levels of behavioral difficulty. The Total Impact Supplement Score (Total IS) ranges from 0 to 10 with higher values indicating greater behavioral difficulty and social impairment.