Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program; Resilience (Personality trait) in children; Depression in children -- Prevention; Academic theses;
Abstract
Some researchers have investigated the use of resiliency-building programs to prevent childhood depression in at risk populations (Comer, 1985; Gladstone & Beardslee, 2000; Seligman, 1995). The following study investigates the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program (DECA). The DECA Program is designed to build resiliency in preschool children by increasing factors that have been found to be related to resiliency: initiative, self-control, and attachment. The study evaluated the short-term effectiveness of the DECA Program. Two Head Start Centers participated in the study. Pretest DECA rating scales were completed by the classroom teachers. For the next three months the experimental classrooms used the DECA Program and the ·control classrooms did not. Teachers then filled out the posttest DECA rating scales. Pretest scores were analyzed in order to identify any significant differences between the control and experimental groups in their DECA rating scale scores prior to treatment. Only one significant pretest score difference was found, on the attachment subscale scores, thus direct comparison of posttest scores was deemed appropriate. Differences between centers were analyzed using a two-tailed t-test. Results indicated that the DECA Program was not effective at increasing factors related to resiliency in a three-month period when compared to a control group that was not exposed to the DECA Program. The program was also not effective at decreasing behavior concerns.
Year of Submission
2003
Degree Name
Specialist in Education
Department
Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations
First Advisor
Melissa Heston
Date Original
2003
Object Description
1 PDF file (98 leaves)
Copyright
©2003 Sarah Carroll Jones
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Jones, Sarah Carroll, "Childhood depression and resiliency : an evaluation of the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program" (2003). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 1155.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/1155
Comments
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.