CPD Researchers Publish PICCOLO Tool

A new observational tool, developed by researchers at Utah State University’s Center for Persons with Disabilities, has been published by Brookes Publishing and will be available in mid-October.

Parenting Interactions with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO™), which was designed to assess and monitor the quality of parent-child interactions, provides home visiting, parent education and early childhood programs with valuable information for strengthening parenting practices. Lori Roggman, Gina Cook, Mark Innocenti, Vonda Jump, Katie Christiansen and Sheila Anderson developed the tool.

Developed for use with parents of children 10-47 months, PICCOLO™ measures 29 developmentally supportive parenting behaviors proven to promote school readiness in four domains — Affection, Responsiveness, Encouragement and Teaching. The tool was developed after extensive research with more than 2,000 diverse families. Results from PICCOLO™ will help programs provide positive feedback to parents, plan individualized family interventions and measure program effectiveness.

A detailed PICCOLO™ user’s guide with administration instructions and frequently asked questions and a training DVD with clips of parent-child interactions for scoring practice are available to support effective use.

A recorded webinar from co-developer Lori Roggman can be seen online (http://bit.ly/piccolowebinar).

About the developers…

Lori A. Roggman, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Family, Consumer and Human Development at the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University. Roggman’s research focuses on parenting and children’s early development, and she has extensive experience in home visiting research, collaborating with programs and practitioners to integrate theory-based inquiry with program evaluation and continuous program improvement. She was principal investigator of a local research team for the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project that provided observations and data for development of the PICCOLO™ tool.

Gina A. Cook, Ph.D., is a research scientist at the Center for Persons with Disabilities and research assistant professor in the Department of Family, Consumer, and Human Development at Utah State University. She has extensive experience as a program evaluator and has been a Head Start teaching coach and an early intervention home visitor trainer on projects designed to increase adult-child language interactions and support parenting and language development.

Mark S. Innocenti, Ph.D., is director of the Research and Evaluation Division at the Center for Persons with Disabilities and associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University. Innocenti has more than 30 years of experience working with infants and young children at-risk and with disabilities and their families through multiple research and model demonstration projects.

Vonda K. Jump, Ph.D., is an applied researcher and evaluator in the Research and Evaluation Division of the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University. She works extensively with programs to promote positive outcomes in young children through ongoing staff and parent training focused on improving practice.

Katie Christiansen, Ph.D., is a PICCOLO™ researcher in the Department of Family, Consumer, and Human Development at Utah State University. She has worked on several projects as a home visitor trainer and has extensive experience in child assessment, video observation, preschool evaluation, and teacher evaluation.

Sheila Anderson, Ph.D., is executive director for the Utah Association for the Education of Young Children. She has more than 20 years of experience in the field of early childhood, as an early childhood classroom teacher and as an instructor and mentor of early childhood professionals. She received a Head Start Graduate Student Research Scholars grant to test PICCOLO™ with fathers.

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Contact: Sue Reeves, 435-797-1977, sue.reeves@usu.edu