AbstractsPsychology

The purpose of this project was to develop a four-week parenting program addressing behavioral challenges and promoting communication skills in young children from low-income Spanish-speaking Latino families. A series of workshops were held to provide parents with strategies to promote language and to understand the function of behaviors. The curriculum was modified to infuse culturally sensitive ideas and was guided by research on at-risk Latino families with young children. The program is important because children with language delays have higher levels of behavior difficulties, language delays are consistent over time, and there are many factors (e.g., language difficulties) that place low-income Latinos at-risk. Curriculum modules addressed concepts of high reflectivity, emotion regulation, and attributional interpretations of child's behaviors. To pilot the new parenting program, 16 mothers and one grandmother, predominantly monolingual Spanish-speaking women from Mexico, were recruited from preschool classrooms at an elementary school located in an impoverished inner-city neighborhood in Southern California. To assess the needs of the families and to pilot measures that can be used for future program evaluation, the parents completed a survey assessing their self-efficacy for addressing behavioral and language challenges in their young children. These results reaffirmed the need for this parenting program, and subsequently, eight of the women participated in four workshops that were held over a month period. In this paper, the curriculum is presented in English and in Spanish, with detailed instructions for professionals and parent leaders who work with Latino families with young children. Feedback from parents obtained during and after each pilot session is presented as the comments and self-reflection help to inform curriculum modifications and procedural recommendations for implementing the program successfully in the future. In addition, the assessment scale with subscales and their reliability coefficients are presented that may be useful for future program evaluation