The development and evaluation of a program of stimulation for preschool children with delayed motor or language development

D. Litt et Phil.The major objective of this study was to develop and to investigate the merit of a stimulation programme for improving the abilities of preschool children with delayed fine-motor and/or language development. There are many different kinds of programmes available for stimulating the abilities of preschool children. Teachers, home-schoolers and mothers utilise these to supplement the preschool curriculum for their preschool children. It is believed that children with developmental delays are at risk for formal education and that stimulation can offset these delays ensuring that children are able to actualise their potential. An intervention programme was designed with the aim of improving school readiness abilities in children. Although many research studies support educational stimulation, to date, insufficient attention has been paid to researching stimulation programmes of this kind. Subtests from Sonnekus and Le Roux’s Group Test for the Evaluation of School Readiness were selected for the screening test. Subtests were selected to identify children with fine-motor and/or language delays. Two hundred and twenty-five children of five years of age turning six years during the course of the year were screen-tested at four different schools. Forty-three children achieving the lowest scores on the screening test at two of the most homogeneous schools in terms of socio-economic grouping were allocated to the experimental or control groups of the Pretest-Posttest Control Group design. The experimental group consisted of 21 participants and the control group, of 22 participants. Quantitative analysis involved determining statistically significant differences between pre-intervention and post-intervention test scores on the six subscales of the Revised Griffiths Scales of Mental Development and the Draw-a-Person test for the two groups of preschool children identified as fine-motor and/or language delayed. The effect of the intervention was also examined on male and female children separately. The male to female ratios were: Group 1: 15:6 and Group 2: 14:8. Overall, the gender ratio was 67,4 % male to 32,6 % female. The programme of stimulation includes vocabulary and language, eye and hand co-ordination, visual and auditory perceptual training, numerical and alphabetical stimulation, and reasoning skills. It was designed for implementation over 20 sessions, each of an hour in duration. The programme was completed in a school term, three sessions per school week for six weeks and two in the seventh week. The intervention programme was effective in improving certain school readiness abilities of children with delays in language and/or fine-motor co-ordination. The following statistically significant results were obtained: With regard to all the children exposed to the intervention programme, improved scores were obtained on the Personal-Social and Eye-Hand Co-ordination subscales of the Griffiths Scales and the Draw-a-Person test for the children. Negative scores were obtained on the Locomotor Scale. For male children, the intervention programme improved the scores on the Speech and Hearing and Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscales of the Griffiths Scales and Draw-a-Person test. Regarding female children, the intervention programme improved the scores on the Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscale of the Griffiths Scales and the Draw-a-Person test. Negative results were obtained on the Locomotor subscale for female children. The gender differences obtained confirm that differences exist between the genders at this stage of development. Consistent positive results were obtained on the Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscale of the Griffiths Scales and the Draw-a-Person test. The Eye and Hand Co-ordination subscale is a measure of visual-motor co-ordination. The Draw-a-Person test reveals the progression in intellectual development toward greater conceptual complexity and maturity. The intervention programme thus contributed to the school readiness abilities of the children. Generalisation of findings is limited for two main reasons. Original settings can never be replicated in educational research and extraneous variables (some measureable and some unknown) may have influenced outcomes. The study was finally evaluated using Payne’s (1994) model of programme evaluation and the Program Evaluation Standards (Sanders, 1994). Regarding Payne’s (1994) model of programme evaluation which involved an evaluation of the research design, data collection, data analysis, results and cost effectiveness, the study can be judged positively. A single negative aspect was the lack of pilot testing which would have served the researcher better in planning for more effective implementation. Positive affirmation for the study was further obtained in applying the Program Evaluation Standards (Sanders, 1994) of Utility, Feasibility, Propriety and Accuracy. This study endorses the belief that preschool development is best promoted by varied educational stimulation within a recognised preschool programme guided by qualified teachers. It is hoped that the development, quantitative analysis and assessment of this intervention programme has contributed to this most important field of preschool intervention and will serve to encourage further research in this area