Assessing Resilience in Preschool Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence: Utilizing Multiple Informants and Evaluating the Impact of the Preschool Kids' Club Intervention.

Abstract

This three study dissertation evaluates resilience in preschool children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). The first study compared mothers’ and child therapists’ assessments of resilience in preschoolers exposed to IPV to determine if they were consistent. Results revealed that group therapists’ ratings of resilience were negatively correlated with children’s externalizing, but not internalizing, behavior problems. Further, findings indicated poor rater agreement between mothers and group therapists on the measure of emotion regulation, but not the measure of prosocial skills. Mothers’ emotion regulation scores were significantly lower than therapists’; however, therapists’ scores were consistent with national data on high-risk children. Finally, resilience evaluations differed based on specific demographic factors, with the most variability for the youngest cohort of children. The second study assessed whether participation in an intervention program enhanced resilience in preschool-age children exposed to IPV. This study also compared preschool children who did and did not receive intervention services to evaluate change in resilience over time from baseline to approximately five weeks later. Results indicated that children who had the highest prosocial skills scores before the intervention exhibited a significant increase in their post-intervention scores, if they participated in the intervention program. Further, a higher pre-intervention score and less severe violence predicted greater change in prosocial skills for children in the intervention program. The final study examined resilience in preschoolers at a six month follow-up. In addition to evaluating longer-term change in resilience, this study identified protective factors that predicted such change. Hierarchical linear modeling was used and results indicated that neither treatment nor time had main effects on prosocial skills or emotion regulation, i.e. scores remained static in the experimental and comparison groups over time. Further analyses revealed that follow-up prosocial skills and emotion regulation scores were predicted by unique protective factors. Higher prosocial skills were predicted by less severe violence and greater maternal coping, whereas emotion regulation was predicted by fewer child externalizing problems and the use of less negative parenting strategies. These studies offer insight into the lasting changes that may be seen in preschool children who have witnessed violence in the home.