Stine Lindahl Jacobsen

Stine L. Jacobsen
Nordbygårdvej 46
8721 Daugård
Tlf: 75220010
Mobile: 22742812
slj@hum.aau.dk

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PhD-defence Saturday April 28, 2012

Current position

Full time PhD student at the Doctoral Programme in Music Therapy AAU.

PhD research study

Assessment and Development of Parental Competences in Families Where Children Have Experienced Emotional Neglect

Supervisors

Cathy McKinney, Ulla Holck & Tony Wigram

The field of neglected children

As a music therapist working at a family care center in Denmark for a period of 2 years problematic issues becomes clear. When it is suspected that parents neglect their children, social services are notified and their task is then to examine interaction between parents and their children in order to help the family in the best possible way. The tasks include finding the parents' resources and potentials and then strengthen these and finding the parents' weaknesses and inappropriate interaction patterns and try to diminish them.

This task is very time consuming. It is very complex to examine parental competences because there are many factors to consider. To observe the family without influencing interaction between parent and child is very difficult. To make parents feel secure so they can react in their normal way when they are observed is difficult. To get a nuanced picture in a short period of time is very difficult, and time is an important factor considering the neglected children's special needs. How can music therapy contribute to these difficult tasks ?

Research Study

The aim of this study is to examine how music therapy can be used as an assessment tool in evaluating parenting competences and parent-child interaction striving for high levels of reliability and validity. It is a new project on testing the assessment model Assessment of Parenting Competences (APC) with a specific assessment protocol and analysis that contains mainly quantitative data. The project is based in a pilot project done in Spring 2006 (Jacobsen 2006).
This study compares data from both parents with neglected children and parents with non-neglected children in order to know more about how differences in parenting competences can be measured. Furthermore, it is relevant to examine if parent and child interaction in music therapy is particularly useful compared to a control group (treatment as usual) looking for improvement of parenting competencies and parent-child interaction using the APC. This has produced the following research questions;

1. Can music therapy assessment measure parenting competences in cases of emotionally neglected children?
   a. Can the APC consistently and reliably measure parent-child interaction including autonomy relationship, interplay with turns between parent and child, and parental response type ?
   b. Do clinical and nonclinical groups demonstrate different parent-child interaction as measured by the APC?
   c. Can the APC differentiate between clinical and nonclinical groups as clearly and consistently as standardized psychological tests used for this purpose?
2. Can music therapy treatment with a parent and his/her emotionally neglected child improve or develop better parenting competences over time?
   a. Can APC measure possible change over time for families receiving music therapy and for families receiving regular treatment?
   b. Can music therapy treatment improve parenting competencies as measured as measured by standardized psychological tests?

Design

This study has a multiple strategy design with a philosophical base of critical realism and pragmatism. The fixed design for this study is a between and within groups design in testing the APCs reliability and validity. The two different groups are parents with neglected children, a clinical group (G1 & G2) and parents with non-neglected children, a nonclinical (G3). The study also includes an experimental design with randomly controlled trials only applied to parents with neglected children or the clinical group. In the experimental design there are two different conditions; music therapy treatment and a control group. The data consists of APC data analysed by means of video recordings and of standardized questionnaires on parenting competencies. The flexible design has a multiple case study strategy specifically with interplay of turns between parent and child as the case under study comparing clinical and non-clinical groups and looking for differences in patterns of interaction. Data here consists of microanalysis including a graphic notation of the interplay of turns, which enables rich descriptions and interpretations of the cases. The flexible design has informed the fixed design and has led to further statistical analysis

References and publications related to the PhD study

Jacobsen, S (2006): "Musikterapi som assessment af specifikke forældrekompetencer", Unpublished Masters´ Thesis Aalborg University
Jacobsen, S & Wigram, T (2007): "Music Therapy for the Assessment of Parental Competences for Children in Need of Care", Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, Vol (16(2)), pp.129-143