Getting Acquainted with Research:

Child Abuse and Early Intervention

Program

Presented by: Panthpreet Singh

Chosen Topic • Effectiveness of Early Intervention
Programs in Preventing Child Abuse in High
Risk Families
 • Search Terms Used: Child abuse or child maltreatment,
early intervention program and high risk families
• Name of Study: Evaluation of an Intervention Program for
Families with Children at Risk for Maltreatment and
Developmental Impairment: A Preliminary Study
• Authors of Study: Maria Manuela Calheiros, Joana Nunes
Basic Patrício, João Graça and Eunice Magalhães
• APA Citation: Calheiros, M. M., Patrício, J. N., Graça, J., &
Information Magalhães, E. (2018). Evaluation of an Intervention
Program for Families with Children at Risk for
Maltreatment and Developmental Impairment: A
Preliminary Study. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 27(5),
1605–1613.
https://doi-org.ezproxy.macewan.ca/10.1007/s10826-017-
0988-x
 • The problem discussed in this
article is related to the child
Problem maltreatment. The research
evaluates the effectiveness of early
Statement of intervention program towards the
the Study children and families that are at
higher risk of child maltreatment.
• There are several factors that results
in child maltreatment like child’s own
characteristics like physical ailment or Factors
disability, parental characteristics like
single parent especially absent father,
Contributed
family characteristics like poverty, to the
domestic violence, low education and
social characteristics like violent Problem
neighborhoods and poor social
network (Calheiros et al., 2018).
 • Experimental study where 40 children and their

Method families were randomly put into two groups of 20

each (with and without intervention) (Calheiros
et al., 2018).

of Data • Nine months long intervention

Collection
• Data collection was done through mixed
approach using questionnaire and interviews

• Questionnaire was a quantitative approach to

measure the level of mental development, verbal
interaction between parents and child, level of
neglect and maltreatment

• Tools Used: Maltreatment Questionnaire and

Griffiths Mental Development Scales
Relevance of • My field of study is human services. After
graduation, I am hoping to join support service

Research to group that focuses on helping children. Basically,

I believe children are the future of tomorrow and
for better tomorrow, each one of them deserve a
Human Services better present. Hence, quality education, safe
environment are some things that are quite
important for the proper growth of children. This
study provides key insights into the early
intervention programs for children and families
that are at higher risk of child abuse so that a
better and safer environment can be provided for
child’s growth and development.
Type of • Quantitative Research: Research used
questionnaires to answer the questions like
family functioning, parenting stress, and
Research child development. It was based on
Maltreatment Questionnaire. Also, Griffiths
Mental Development Scale was also used to
measure the level of mental development
which helped to conduct statistical analysis
through ANNOVA by using these measurable
variables.
 • Reviewing Exiting Literature : Several studies are cited in the article
related to the early intervention programs for child abuse

• Identification of problem: Based on the existing literature, the gap

was identified that a comprehensive program needs to be developed

Steps to that addresses the needs of both parents and children. The
intervention program also targeted children with developmental
impairment (Calheiros et al., 2018).
Conduct • Designing Study: The research paper properly identifies the

Research procedure to conduct the research by describing in detail about the

characteristics of participants, designing the experiment, putting the
participants into the groups, implementing an intervention program,
Project conducting survey through questionnaire in the end, using ANNOVA
for analysis

• Analysing Data: ANNOVA was used to analyze the different

measurable factors of the data collected through questionnaire

• Drawing Conclusion and Reporting Results: Based on the data

analysis, the researchers drew conclusions based on the results they
found and reported their finding in this discussed research paper
Summary of • The experiment found that there is a positive
impact of early intervention programs for families
at the risk of child abuse. This early intervention
Research results in decrease in inadequate parenting skills
that involves lack of supervision, neglect, abuse
Findings of any kind and promoted better interaction
between parents and children (Calheiros et al.,
2018).
• The study showed positive impact on the
cognitive development of children as they
showed improvement in vocabulary, building
larger and complex sentences, identifying objects
(Calheiros et al., 2018).