Search results

This project was a mixed-method, multi-level study of low income families of children with special needs and the system which served them, focusing primarily on child care, employment, and balancing work and family. This approach included an analysis of existing national and state-level data sets, statewide surveys of parents and child care providers, and a field study to look at these issues at the local level in three selected communities in the state of Maine: Portland, Lewiston/Auburn, and Presque Isle. While the primary focus was on access to child care, this project also looked at the related issues of welfare reform, the impact of work force participation on having a child with special needs, and the issue of coordination of early intervention services with the child care system. The goal was to understand better the issues facing low income families with special needs children across the programs and policies affecting their employment, access to child care, and meeting the special needs of their children. In the first year of the study, qualitative research was conducted to learn directly from parents about their experiences. In the second and third years, a field study of three communities was conducted as well as statewide surveys and analysis of national data bases to supplement the data collected in the first year. This data collection is comprised of the two quantitative data files produced during the second and third years of the study which are described in more detail below.

Child Care Provider Survey: The Child Care Provider Survey was a statewide survey of child care providers selected at random from the list of licensed providers in Maine given by the state licensing agency. Questions focused on the perspective of child care providers on the issues of access and inclusion that parents raised.

Parent Survey: The Parent Survey was a statewide survey of parents and children aged 0-18 years with diagnosed special needs (enrolled in Maine Care - Katie Beckett and Title V eligibility groups - and Child Development Services early intervention caseloads). Questions focused on child care utilization and work experiences in relation to children with special needs.

Researchers interested in information about the qualitative data should contact the Child Care and Children with Special Needs Project Web site.

The National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A) was designed to estimate the lifetime-to-date and current prevalence, age-of-onset distributions, course, and comorbidity of DSM-IV disorders in the child and adolescent years of life among adolescents in the United States; to identify risk and protective factors for the onset and persistence of these disorders; to describe patterns and correlates of service use for these disorders; and to lay the groundwork for subsequent follow-up studies that can be used to identify early expressions of adult mental disorders.

The core NCS-A interview schedule was an adaptation of the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). NCS-A also administered the non-verbal subtest (Matrices subtest) of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT).

In addition to interviewing adolescents, information was collected from a parent or a parent surrogate to obtain an additional perspective on the adolescent's mental health and its correlates. Information from parents focused on the five adolescent disorders for which previous methodological research has most consistently shown that parental reports are important for making diagnoses: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, major depressive episode, and dysthymic disorder.

Demographic information collected by NCS-A includes age, citizenship status, country of birth, criminal history, ethnicity, grandparents' country of birth, language(s) spoken in the home, parents' country of birth, race, religion, and sex.

The data collection contains six data files: (1) data for the adolescent household and school respondents; (2) data for the parents who responded to the long self-administered questionnaire; (3) data for the parents who responded to both the long self-administered questionnaire and short telephone interview; (4) diagnostic variables derived from the data collected from the adolescents and parents; (5) K-BIT scores normed to the NCS-A adolescent sample; and (6) raw K-BIT data.

The National Survey of American Life Adolescent Supplement (NSAL-A), 2001-2004, was designed to estimate the lifetime-to-date and current prevalence, age-of-onset distributions, course, and comorbidity of DSM-IV disorders among African American and Caribbean adolescents in the United States; to identify risk and protective factors for the onset and persistence of these disorders; to describe patterns and correlates of service use for these disorders; and to lay the groundwork for subsequent follow-up studies that can be used to identify early expressions of adult mental disorders. In addition and similar to the NSAL adult dataset (Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001-2003 [United States] (ICPSR 20240)), the adolescent dataset contains detailed measures of health; social conditions; stressors; distress; racial identity; subjective, neighborhood conditions; activities and school; media; and social and psychological protective and risk factors. Numerous variables from the adult dataset have been merged into the adolescent dataset, as the NSAL adult and adolescent respondents reside in the same households. Some of these variables apply to the entire household (i.e. region, urbanicity, and family income), while others apply specifically to the NSAL adult respondent living in the adolescent's household (i.e. adult years of education, adult marital status, and adult nativity [foreign-born vs. US born]). The immigration measures were asked of Caribbean black adult respondents only. No comparable measures assess the immigration and generational status of the Caribbean black adolescent respondents. The adult dataset measures are merged into the adolescent dataset to assist in approximating these measures for adolescent respondents. The NSAL adolescent dataset also includes variables for other non-core and experimental disorders. These include tobacco use/nicotine dependence, premenstrual syndrome, minor depression, recurrent brief depression, hypomania, and hypomania sub-threshold. Demographic variables include age, race and ethnicity, ancestry or national origins, height, weight, marital status, income, and education level.