Partners A Curriculum to Help Premature, Low Birthweight Infants Get Off to a Good Start

• Published in: Topics in early childhood special education Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 36 - 55
• Main Authors: Sparling, Joseph, Lewis, Isabelle, Ramey, Craig T., Wasik, Barbara H., Bryant, Donna M., LaVange, Lisa M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-04-1991
• Subjects: Birth Weight; Caregivers; Child Development; Curriculum; Early Intervention; Early Partners; Home Programs; Intelligence Quotient; Interaction; Parent Child Relationship; Partners for Learning; Perinatal Influences; Premature Infants; Program Effectiveness; Toddlers
• ISSN: 0271-1214; 1538-4845
• DOI: 10.1177/027112149101100106

Partners, a curriculum emphasizing adult-child interactions, or partnering, was developed in the mid-1980s at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center and was first used in the Infant Health and Development Program, a 3-year longitudinal intervention study in eight cities that involved premature, low birthweight (LBW) infants. The first part of the curriculum, called Early Partners, emphasizes factors that are of particular salience in the development of LBW children. Early Partners and the second part of the curriculum, called Partners for Learning, include 23 developmental skills organized into four broad themes. A multiple regression analysis showed that measures of the rate at which the curriculum was delivered, both in the child development center and in the home, added significantly to the prediction of 36-month Stanford Binet IQ. A descriptive analysis revealed an IQ advantage (13 IQ points for “lighter'' LBW children and 6 IQ points for “heavier'' LBW children) associated with receiving an average rather than a low quantity of curriculum activities in the child development center.