Assessment of Parenting Skills: Infant and Preschooler
Assessment of Parenting Skills: Infant and Preschooler
Evaluates a parent’s genuine interest in a child as reflected in the parent’s detailed knowledge of that child. Also addresses parents of twins.
ASSESSMENT OF PARENTING SKILLS: INFANT AND PRESCHOOLER (APSIP)
Purpose: Evaluates a parent’s ability to be helpful to a child, and his or her knowledge of the details of the child’s life, the details that allow parenting to be effective, appropriately geared to a particular child. Additionally assesses parenting competency skills.
Age: Parents undergoing a custody evaluation or involved in family therapy or counseling
Testing Time & Scoring: Typically less than an hour
The APSIP has been designed for use with the parents of infants and preschoolers up to 5 years of age. There is a special section for parents of twins.
It evaluates a parent’s genuine interest in a child by assessing the mother’s or father’s knowledge of the details of the child’s DEVELOPMENTAL ROUTINES, SPECIAL NEEDS, FEARS, HEALTH HISTORY, and if age-appropriate, SCHOOL HISTORY and PERSONAL HYGIENE.
Only a parent who knows the day-to-day details of a child’s life, how he or she thinks, socializes, behaves, performs in school, handles fears and so forth, can plan a life that truly serves the best interests of that specific child.
A special section of selected items is used with the APSIP Summary Sheet to compare one parent with the other or to assess one parent alone with respect to: PARENTAL ATTUNEMENT TO THE CHILD; STRENGTHS IN PARENTING SKILLS; WEAKNESSES IN PARENTING SKILLS.
The APSIP, in its concern with parental sensitivity, recognizes the importance of the neuroscience research on feelings---the foundation stones of sensitivity. Research by T. Dix, The Affective Organization of Parenting, reflects how the APSIP was developed. The neuroscience research showed that emotions are essential for good parenting. They serve to orient, organize, and motivate how parents approach acts of parenting. “When invested in the interests of children, emotions organize sensitive, responsive parenting. Emotions undermine parenting, however, when they are too weak, too strong, or poorly matched to childrearing tasks. In harmonious relationships, emotions are, on average, positive because parents manage interactions so that children’s and parents’ concerns are promoted. In distressed relationships, chronic negative emotion is both a cause and a consequence of interactions that undermine parents’ concerns and children’s development.”
Feelings influence thoughts, actions, attention, perception, the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information, as well as associative learning for children as well as adults.
The APSIP is especially useful for child custody evaluations, since many family court judges prefer measures that directly address parenting skills and parenting strengths and weaknesses. It provides important information to custody evaluations by answering: “How much does a parent know about handling normal, everyday childcare situations?” Any professional who would profit from having crystal-clear information about a parent’s awareness of the needs of infants and very young children will love the APSIP. It provides a quick way to pinpoint any key area in which a parent would profit from guidance in establishing truly helpful relations with his or her children.
Contains APSIP Manual, 8 APSIP Booklets, 8 APSIP Summary Sheets.
