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The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program, based on music, movement, and dance, aimed at improving motor skills in children at risk of developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Participants comprised 70 primary school children (47 boys/23 girls) aged between 6 and 8 years. Participants were given the Spanish adaptation of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children–Second Edition (MABC-2) to identify difficulties and initially classify into three groups: a group of 17 at risk of DCD who participated in the intervention program (Experimental Group), a group of 18 at risk of DCD who did not participate (Control Group with Risk) and a group of 35 children, with scores higher than the cutoff point (Control Group without Risk). The results show a significant improvement in the motor skills of children who participated in the intervention program, while those in the Control Group showed no significant changes in the second evaluation compared with the first. Likewise, it could be affirmed that this intervention based on group activities involving music, movement, and dance is a very successful blend for motor improvement in children with coordination problems, due to the combination of cognitive stimulation areas and techniques.

Articulation disorders are deficiencies in the realization of speech sounds unrelated to organic or neurological disorders. Over the last decade, there has been a debate on the efficiency of non-verbal oro-motor exercises, which are orofacial movements programmed and organized in an intentional and coordinated way to control lips, tongue, and soft palate muscles. Of the 122 children evaluated, 52 presented articulatory difficulties. An intervention with nonverbal oro-motor exercises was applied, and children were again assessed following treatment. The results showed no differences between the experimental and control groups, either in the number of sounds that improved after this period or in the severity of difficulties (we categorized those with articulation difficulties in two to six sounds as ‘medium’ and those with difficulties in articulating more than seven sounds as ‘severe’). These results indicated that nonverbal oro-motor exercises alone are not efficient for intervention in difficulties in the realization of sounds in 4-year-old children.

The purpose of our research was to explore the role of both parents’ use of behavioural regulation with food and children’s emotional self-regulation in young children with and without overweight/obesity. For this purpose, 123 participants (n = 62 boys and n = 61 girls) were recruited and classified into two groups by their Body Mass Index (BMI, non-overweight vs. overweight/obese) and into two age groups (four years and seven years). The children’s parents/primary caregivers completed two scales of the Childhood Obesogenic Behaviours’ Questionnaire (COBQ). The participants were measured and weighed to calculate their BMI to identify overweight, obesity, and non-overweight. The results showed that the means for children who were obese/overweight were significantly higher than those of children who were non-overweight for both the parents’ behavioural regulation scale (non-overweight: M = 1.80, SD = 0.69, overweight/obesity: M = 2.94, SD = 0.85) and the child’s emotional overeating scale (non-overweight: M = 1.47, SD = 0.56, overweight/obesity: M = 2.65, SD = 0.87). No statistically significant differences were found related to age (4 and 7 years), indicating that the potential impact of obesogenic behaviours starts early in development. Similarly, no differences by gender were found. Due to the implications of obesity for physical and mental health, and the high probability of maintaining this overweight status in the long term, family-based interventions to prevent obesity are highly advisable from birth.

Empirically Supported Psychological Treatments for Children and Adolescents: State of the Art.The empirical evidence accumulated on the efficacy, effectiveness, and efficiency of psychotherapeutic treatments in children and adolescents calls for an update. The main goal of this paper objective was to carry out a selective review of empirically supported psychological treatments for a variety of common psychological disorders and problems in childhood and adolescence.A review was carried out of the psychological treatments for different psychological disorders and problems in social-emotional or behavioral adjustment in the child-adolescent population according to the Spanish National Health System (Clinical Practice Guidelines) levels of evidence and degrees of recommendation.The findings suggest that psychological treatments have empirical support for addressing a wide range of psychological problems in these developmental stages. The degree of empirical support ranges from low to high depending on the phenomenon analyzed. The review suggests unequal progress in the different fields of intervention.From this update, psychologists will be able to make informed decisions when implementing those empirically supported treatments to address the problems that occur in childhood and adolescence.

This study validated the four mathematics tests of the Spanish version of the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III) Achievement (ACH) battery for use in the first six grades of school in Spain. Developmental effects and gender differences were also examined. Participants were a normal population sample of 424 (216 boys) children aged 6 to 13 years. Results showed that the tests have good test-retest and internal reliability and good construct and criterion-related validity. Significant main effects of schooling were obtained with scores increasing across the six school grades, but scores between fourth and fifth graders did not differ significantly. Overall, boys scored higher than girls on all tests but the effect sizes of these gender differences were small ( d ≤ .12).

The present study examined 7- to 11-month-old infants' anticipatory and reactive reaching for temporarily occluded objects. Infants were presented with laterally approaching objects that moved at different velocities (10, 20, and 40. cm/s) in different occlusion situations (no-, 20. cm-, and 40. cm-occlusion), resulting in occlusion durations ranging between 0 and 4. s. Results show that except for object velocity and occlusion distance, occlusion duration was a critical constraint for infants' reaching behaviors. We found that the older infants reached more often, but that an increase in occlusion duration resulted in a decline in reaching frequency that was similar across age groups. Anticipatory reaching declined with increasing occlusion duration, but the adverse effects for longer occlusion durations diminished with age. It is concluded that with increasing age infants are able to retain and use information to guide reaching movements over longer periods of non-visibility, providing support for the graded representation hypothesis (Jonsson & von Hofsten, 2003) and the two-visual systems model (Milner & Goodale, 1995). © 2010 Elsevier Inc.