Articles

Today, Russia is a member of the European Federation of Psychological Associations (EFPA) and in the summer 2019 the Russian Psychological Society was the host to the 16th European Congress of Psychology (ECP) in Moscow, gathering psychologists from all over the world. In connection with the 2019 ECP, this special edition has been compiled by members of EFPA’s Standing Committee on Psychology in Education (SCPiE) and represents a collection of papers highlighting the range of work that educational psychologists undertake with schools and youth. This volume is also the next step for the EFPA Standing Committee for Psychologists in Education to strengthen and promote educational psychology in Europe, in order to reach our end goal: efficient and wellfunctioning institutions of learning.

Background. Supporting pupils’ social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) development is a task that schools are expected to undertake in England, yet many staff members find it challenging due to their belief that they don’t possess the necessary skills.

Objective. To evaluate a commercially available, training resource, The Emotional Wellbeing Toolkit, aimed at raising the skills of adults working with children in the SEMH area.

Design. The Toolkit was adapted and used as training material by a professional team comprised of educational psychologists, clinical psychologists, and specialist teachers, for schools within an eastern region in England. A mixed methodology was employed to evaluate the usefulness of the Toolkit as a training resource, as well as its perceived effectiveness in raising the skills of school professionals working within the SEMH area. Qualitative as well as quantitative data was gathered from the two groups participating in training, as school staff delegates, and as facilitators of training delivery. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used for data analysis.

Results. The findings suggest evidence of improved skills and knowledge in the area of SEMH, with some specific impact on delegates’ practice. Implications for practice are discussed.

Background. Thepriority for today's educational psychologists in Lithuanian schools is to promote psycho-educational activities aimed at fostering children’s well-being. School psychologists are to provide services for, and consult with, children and adolescents with mental health challenges, in order to facilitate their transitions to positive developmental trajectories. Therefore, it is important to test the construct validity of the adolescent social emotional health survey (SEHS-S) in a Lithuanian sample.

Objective. To investigate the social emotional health, empathy, and self-esteem of a Lithuanian adolescent sample using the adolescent Social Emotional Health Survey (SEHS-S), as well as to perform regression and confirmatory factor analysis.

Design. We used the Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (SEHS-S)(Furlong et al., 2014), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)(Davis, 1980), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES) (M. Rosenberg, 1989). The sample was comprised of 935 students (12-18 years old) from various Lithuanian schools: 482 boys and 453 girls. 

Results. The self–esteem of the adolescent boys was higher than that of the adolescent girls. A positive correlation between the adolescents’ social emotional health and their self-esteem and empathy was identified.  The strongest predictors of the adolescents’ social and emotional health included empathic concern, self-esteem, and perspective-taking. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of the structural model of the Lithuanian version of the SEHS-S survey.

Conclusion.The findings of the regression and confirmatory factor analysis supported the use of the SEHS-S as a valid and reliable instrument for mental health research with the Lithuanian adolescents. School psychologists will be able to use the Lithuanian version of SEHS–S surveyto monitor adolescent social emotional health.

Background. The psychological health of young people in Sweden has declined since measurements began to be taken in 1985. The reasons for the increase in stress and decline in psychological well-being among adolescents have been debated during the past few years.

Objective. The aims of this study were to explore: 1) pupils’ experience of student health services, family, friends, recuperation and the learning environment; 2) whether there is a difference between introverted and extroverted pupils’ sense of well-being, perceived stress, views of the learning environment, and relationships with friends and family; and 3) the degree to which the different aspects of school life predict well-being and stress. 

Design. Data were collected by means of a web survey in which 1045 respondents participated. 

Results. The results showed that there are significant differences in perceptions of well-being and stress depending on gender and the type of study program pupils were enrolled in. The results also revealed significant differences between introverts’ and extraverts’ relationships with family and friends, experience of the learning environment, and reported well-being and stress. A series of hierarchical linear regressions revealed that there were several factors affecting pupils’ reported well-being and stress. The learning environment and relationships with family and friends were significant predictors for both outcome variables. Pupils’ ability to recuperate from their work was found to be the most impactful predictor for well-being and stress. 

Conclusion. Our results suggest that the way in which teachers interact with pupils is an important factor influencing pupils’ experience of well-being and stress. Furthermore, our results suggest that pupils would benefit from student health services being made more visible and pro-active in their interaction with students.

Background. More than 295,000 people have been identied with bleeding disorders worldwide, the majority being hemophiliacs (184,560; data from the World Federation of Hemophilia, 2017). Hemophilia poses a paradox: Physical activity is recommended for children with hemophilia for the sake of their health and to promote inclusion, but teachers are reluctant to involve them in sports at school. School psychologists play a key role in helping patients and their families adapt and learn to cope with their new reality, and they provide psychosocial support by helping patients and their families develop strategies to cope with physical, mental, emotional, and social challenges related to hemophilia.

Objective. The objective of this study is to include children with hemophilia, and their parents and teachers, in a participatory process to design an innovative digital tool for modifying mental representations of parents and teachers about the importance of physical activity and sports at school for hemophiliacs.

Design. The present study is based on a pre-/post-test design where the mental representation about hemophilia of all individuals concerned (16 children with hemophilia: mean age = 7.8 years, SD = 1.9; their parents; and their teachers) is collected twice: at the beginning (pre-test) and at the end (post-test) of the process of collaborative game design.

Results. Even though fathers, mothers, and teachers perceive some sports as more risky than others (e.g., rugby, soccer, cycling), they modied their opinions positively about the necessity of physical activity and sports at school for children with hemophilia. The results showed that the collaborative design of this prototype of an innovative educational tool positively influenced the opinions of fathers, mothers, and teachers about the role of physical activity and sports at school, for their children with hemophilia.

Conclusion. Although the choice of physical activity or sport must be individual and must be discussed with the psychologist, parents, teachers, and children, this hemophilia “team” must discuss the risks and benefits of different sports, taking account of the physical and psychological conditions, because for all these children, physical activity and exercise have many positive benefits for health and can help self-esteem, learning, and inclusion in schools.

Background. Over the last several decades, the world has been made more accessible for people with disabilities. However, many of these achievements have primarily focused on physical limitations, and it is also important that the environment be made easy to understand for those people who may be at risk of social exclusion. Reading competence is one of the fundamental functional skills people need to access communication and culture. The facilitation of this adaptation is called cognitive accessibility. Cognitive accessibility encompasses everything related to how people understand the meaning of their environment, and especially written documents.

Objective.The main objective of this study was to establish a scale of evaluation of reading competence for adults with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) compared to university students (as a control group). Thus, we sought to  establish different levels of reading competence relative to the difficulty of various texts (A, B, C), in accordance with the criteria established in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

Design. 450 adults with IDD and 200 undergraduate university students took part in this study. They read and were scored on three texts of different lexical and semantic complexity.

Results. The results in three different studies showed that adults with intellectual and developmental disability (AIDD) improve their performance in reading comprehension when additional time and support are made available.

Conclusion. If a greater amount of time is made available, the performance of a significant part of the AIDD population improves considerably, in some cases approaching the level of performance of university students. These results raise new lines of research on how to give people with IDD access to more comprehensible and accessible reading material.

Background. Although lyric poetry contains enormous opportunities for personal development of teenagers, expanding the scope of aesthetic experiences available to them, students often respond to it with hostility, for it is rather hard for them to comprehend. While much prior research has stressed the importance of teaching poetry to adolescents, the psychodidactic foundations of developing their creative interaction with lyric poetry and the role of textbooks in this process remain virtually unexplored.

Objective. To examine the psychodidactic foundations of developing teenagers’ creative interaction with lyric poetry: the relevant principles and their implementation in an educational book of a new – psychodidactic – type, which determines the strategy and tactics of the joint study activity modeled in it.

Design. A teaching intervention was conducted, which included whole-class discussions of the poems and work with educational books based on psychodidactic principles. Participants were 311 6th-8th grade students from four Moscow secondary schools.

Results. The principle of open individuality was singled out as the basic one and was elaborated in four interrelated sub-principles: wholeness, polylogy, multidimensionality, and value hierarchy. These principles were implemented in two educational book chapters on lyric poems by A. Pushkin and M. Lermontov. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test conducted upon the results before and after the intervention revealed that the control group showed no significant changes, whereas the final results of the experimental group revealed significant (p < .001) increases in the level of the assessed aspects of creative interaction: description of one’s impression, interpretative opinion, lyric plot, experiences of the lyric hero, and figurative language.

Conclusion. Building the learning process on the psychodidactic principles mentioned above, as well as working with educational books based upon these principles, is effective in developing teenagers’ creative interaction with lyric poems, turning the reading of poetry into a valuable experience.

Background. The principles of acquiring knowledge and developmental theories are powerful tools that psychologists use in educational contexts to change people’s lives. As student populations become more diverse, psychologists need to play an important role in the evaluation and adaptation of their cognitive, behavioral, motivational, attitudinal, and emotional needs and challenges. They can intervene in various areas, from curriculum development, to regulations and guidelines for the application of direct educational tools and techniques by students, teachers, or institutions. One way to promote change at a macro-level is through providing creative experiences, such as interactive and engaging exhibitions that foster personal development at different levels.

Objective. The main focus of this study was to contribute to a theoretical foundation for the need to communicate psychological concepts through exhibitions. The secondary focus was the feedback given by visitors of all ages and educational contexts about how they enriched their knowledge about emotions through participating in an exhibit on the subject.

Design. We used a descriptive design, which employed diverse kinds of feedback from the visitors to an exhibition to measure its impact. The exhibition aimed at explaining in an interactive way what emotions are and how they may be regulated. The Southern Regional Delegation of the Order of Portuguese Psychologists (OPP) developed and displayed the “Experiencing Emotions” Exhibition (EEE), which featured 30 different activities divided into three parts: recognizing, living with, and transforming emotions. e exhibition toured the southern region of Portugal for nine months and was visited by more than 9000 people.

Results. The feedback was positive for all indicators.

Conclusion. Exhibitions like this one may be powerful instruments in the future to ensure that everyone has access to psychological concepts through interactive experiences, and gains knowledge about themselves, others, and the world.

Background. Cultivation of positive attitudes towards gifted education is important to ensure that gifted students receive educational opportunities appropriate to their learning needs.

Objective. To examine the attitudes of students, parents, and teachers towards gifted education in the Slovenian upper secondary schools.

Design. A total of 1,020 students from four selective co-educational upper secondary schools (i.e., gymnasiums), their teachers (n= 84), and parents (n = 306) participated in the study. Respondents’ attitudes were assessed using an adapted version of the Gagne and Nadeau attitude survey about gifted students and their education. In order to obtain a deeper insight into the context, an open question about gifted education was also posed.

Results. Participants generally hold neutral to positive attitudes towards gifted education. They expressed their awareness of gifted students’ special academic needs and the meaningfulness of specific educational support. Furthermore, 68% of participating students emphasized the need for relatedness to their peers (i.e., not to stand out or be labelled), often neglected in provisions for the gifted. Comparative analysis showed that attitudes towards the extent of knowledge and experience in the field differed among the groups of participants.

Conclusion. Qualitative analysis complemented the quantitative findings by addressing “the principle of challenging” instead of “the principle of adding”, suggesting that the focus should be primarily on adapting the curricula and, out of consideration for their social and emotional needs in adolescence, not on overloading gifted students.

Background. In recent decades, discussionhas been increasingabout the guidelines for psychological interventions, evidence-based interventions (EBI), and evidence-based practice (EBP). These efforts have a longer tradition in medicine and psychiatry,but are increasingly present in the practice of school psychology. The creation, use, and implementation of EBP procedures protects psychologists from intuitive and non-scientific procedures that can harm clients, psychology, and its development.

Objective. The focus of this article is the EBP of school psychologists in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We researched to what degree psychologists implement EBP in their work in educational institutions, in which domains they most effectively apply EBP, and what the obstacles and needs are regarding EBP in school psychology.

Design. Two hundred and two school psychologists answered a questionnaireabout their application of EBP. The questionnaire contains categories about the sourcesof EBP, its availability,and the extent to which respondents apply EBP in specific domains of their work.

Results. The data show a low practical significance of differences among respondents from the three countries. Respondents reported the highest values for the reliance of their work on professional cooperation, useof EBP principles in specific domains, and use ofprofessional guidelines.The Pearson correlation indicates positive association among all substantial categories.

Conclusion. The preliminary results show that school psychologists are aware of the importance of applying EBP in practice, and highlight some of the obstacles that prevent them from cultivating psychological science in the interest of education.

Background. During the last decades, the need for supporting vulnerable groups of the population facing crisis situations and adversities has grown dramatically. School communities have been particularly affected increasing the need for interventions promoting individual and system’s resilience and well-being.

Objective. This paper presents an integrated approach to linking theory, training, research, and interventions in the Greek educational system in an alternative model for providing school psychological services. This approach puts particular emphasis on the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based prevention and intervention programs for enhancing resilience and supporting school communities during unsettling times. 

Results. In particular the programs that have been developed and implemented by the Laboratory of School Psychology (LSP), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens are reviewed and presented. For the evaluation of the evidence-based intervention programs, a multilevel assessment model has been applied. Overall, results showed the effectiveness of SEL-based intervention programs aiming at a) enhancing individual resilience and psychological adjustment; and b) supporting school communities during adversities, such as economic recession, refugee influx, and natural disasters.

Conclusion. The evaluation process and the positive outcomes of the programs highlight the critical importance of implementing intervention programs to support all members of school communities. The description of the various actions developed and implemented by the LSP stresses the important role that universities can play in bridging the gap between theory, research, training, and practice in the field of school psychology.

Background. Children and adolescents currently spend a great deal of time at school and teachers are viewed as a source of social support in different areas of their personal development, such as their career adaptability.

Objective. To provide insight into the way students in secondary vocational education perceive teacher support and to explore the association between perceived teacher support, career adaptability, and other demographic and academic variables.

Design. A questionnaire battery with two main tools, the Teacher Support Scale and the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale, was the data collection method. Subjects were students in the last year of full-time study at public secondary vocational schools and vocational upper-secondary schools. The sample comprised 3,028 participants aged 18–26.

Result. Students perceived the support of their teachers quite positively, with the difference between boys and girls not being statistically significant. The satisfaction of the student with the field of study, academic performance, and satisfaction with the academic success rate predict the perception of teacher support. The level of perceived teacher support positively correlates with students’ overall career adaptability, as well as with all the dimensions of career adaptability, and is also a significant predictor.

Conclusion. Both key concepts, teacher support and career adaptability, have the potential to attract the attention of psychologists working in the educational system.

Background. In Sweden, teachers are subject to high turnover, unfavorable working conditions, and high incidence of stress-related disorders. The aim of the present study was to (a) assess teachers’ perceptions of work-related health and working conditions, (b) examine the relationship among several key characteristics in teachers’ work environment, and (c) examine the importance for well-being of job satisfaction, separation between work and spare time,and recovery from work.

Design. Primary and lower secondary school teachers in Sweden were invited to participate in a questionnaire study assessing five central aspects of health (subjective well-being, physical activity, self-rated health, sleep quality, and health complaints). Building on previous research, the effect of job satisfaction on well-being as well as on health complaints was tested using a mediation model with separation between work and spare time, and recovery from work, as mediators.

Results. Of the respondents, 40.2% scored below the cut-off recommended in the screening for depression, 43.8% qualifiedas leading a sedentary lifestyle, and 33.7% reported insufficient recovery from work. Sixty-one percentreported one or more sleep problems indicative of insomnia. Well-being correlated highly with self-rated health, health complaints, and separation between work and spare time. There is moderate support for the two models used to analyze the associations between job satisfaction and the outcome variables – well-being and health complaints – as both separation between work and spare time, and recovery from work, partially mediate the associations.

Conclusion. The results confirm recent research pointing to the teaching profession as a vulnerable occupational group. Especially disconcerting and relevant for teachers in Sweden are results indicative of problems with recovery from work and insufficient separation between work and spare time.

Background. Children with deficits in self-regulation often perform worse in school and are less accepted by peers. However, self-regulation can be trained and developed by making detailed plans to achieve specific goals. One such strategy is WOOP (it includes thinking about wishes, outcomes, and obstacles, and creating a plan to achieve a goal), known in the literature as MCII, or if-then plans. 

Objective. Noting the encouraging results of the WOOP method, we aimed to evaluate whether WOOP has the potential to ameliorate self-regulation deficits on a day-to-day-level .

Design. In total, 49 school-aged children (M= 11.2 years, SD= 8.4 months) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1) Condition 1, underwent a WOOP intervention; and 2) Condition 2,  performed the intervention without contrasting obstacles and planning. The self-regulation abilities were assessed each day over an 18-day survey period by both the children themselves and their parents. ADHD symptom-severity was assessed as a proxy for self-regulation; specifically, we used six items from the Conners 3 scale and the German adaptation of the Brief Self-Control Scale.

Results.The children in both conditions demonstrated increased self-regulation, according to their self-reports at the beginning and end of the survey period. The parents reported different progressions of the two conditions over the survey period, but these did not differ significantly. In addition, both conditions  are helpful to improve children's self-regulation in daily life. 

Conclusion. Further research on implementing practicable interventions in schoolchildren´s daily life is highly recommended.

Background. Cultural congruence serves as a measure of the conformity of an adolescent’s behavior to age-specific rules inherent in a particular cultural context. A cultural context is a system of situations with pre-set behavior-regulating rules.

Objective. Rule-based behavior management is known to be an issue in adolescence. Teenagers often defy common rules, thus pitting themselves against adults. In our study, we recruited adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 years (N=699) who completed a questionnaire on the rules that they have to comply with in their day-to-day lives.

Design. Based on 2,498 responses, we identified 70 rules that were mentioned in 98.15% of the responses. We then designed a cultural congruence diagnostics test to measure the extent to which an adolescent’s behavior fits invariable age-specific rules in the Russian cultural context. The rules are combined into four factors: management, safety, studies, and social interaction.

Results. These factors appear to be in line with existing theories on the adolescents’ social context. According to cultural and historical psychology, peers are considered as the most important subjects that adolescents interact with within their social context; this is confirmed by relevant items in the questionnaire. Studies, the factor that dominates in the pre-adolescent age, are still relevant, which is why the test features such factors as studies and management. Safety emerges as an important factor in the cultural congruence test for preschool children and primary school students. This factor helps regulate behavior in adolescence since safety rules are part of the typical rules in the adolescent cultural context.

Conclusion. The test design features the following psychometric properties: internal consistency of the scale (Cronbach’s alpha), discriminatory power (Ferguson’s coefficient), validity, and reliability.

Background. The Psychological Risk Factors of Deviant Behavior in Adolescents In- ventory was developed based on “empirical keying” comparisons of answers to a pull of self-regulation-related items in clinical (drug addicts) and control groups. 

Objective. To reveal differences between adolescents with delinquent behavior from drug addictions and controls using the Psychological Risk Factors of Deviant Behavior in Adolescents Inventory and to study their relationships to anxiety, depression, and personal resources. 

Design. 760 adolescents aged 13–17 from three schools of the Murmansk Region of Russia, 288 from eight Russian special education institutions for adolescents with delinquent behavior (prevalent diagnosis was F91), and 108 adolescents having drug addiction filled out the Psychological Risk Factors of Deviant Behavior in Adolescents Inventory. Adolescents from the control and delinquent behavior groups also filled out the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Additionally 280 pupils in the 10th- 11th grades and 99 adolescents with delinquent behavior in the 10th grade and up filled out the Hardiness Test, Life Orientation Test, and Self-Efficacy Scale. 

Results. Data reproduced results indicating higher dissatisfaction with relation- ships with parents, “black-and-white” thinking, a technology addiction tendency and antisocial tendencies, a low level of self-regulation and a high level of risky behavior and sensation seeking in adolescents with drug addictions that could be explained not only by psychological differences but also by different social situations or strategies in responding to items. Adolescents with delinquent behavior also reported higher anti-social tendencies, novelty seeking, as well as lower self-regulation. In both the clinical and control groups, there were reasonable correlations between better self-regulation (lower technological addiction and antisocial tendencies, better self-regulation and emotion control) and personal resources of self-regulation. 

Conclusion. Antisocial tendencies, novelty seeking, and lower self-regulation could be psychological indicators of self-regulatory deficiencies in adolescents with a risk of involvement in delinquent behavior, but further studies are needed to distinguish whether these differences are explained by self-regulation, social situation or strategy of responding to items in adolescents with deviant behavior compared to controls. 

Background. The study of emotional creativity has not received very much attention in Arab studies. Emotional creativity is a clear concept that appears in the everyday practice of individuals. 

Objective. The present study aimed to examine the effect of a training program on emotional creativity among undergraduate students.

Design. The study comprised 67 undergraduate students at the Hashemite University; the participants were divided between a control group (N=35), and an experimental group (N=32), and data was collectedusing the Emotional Creativity Inventory(ECI).

Results. The results showed that the training program was effective in improving participants' emotional creativity, and a statistically significant difference was found between the control and experimental groups, showing the effectiveness of the training program in favor of the experimental group. The researcher recommends that students begin to be trained in emotional creativity skills from an early age.

Conclusion. The results of data analysis in the current study document the impact of the training program in improving the level of emotional creativity among members of the experimental group. This may be due to the strategies and techniques used in the training program, which contributed to raising the level of emotional creativity.

Background. The problem of students’ adaptation to a new educational level (normative educational crises, according to Slobodchikov, 2008) is considered. Unlike the literature (Barber & Olsen, 2004; Akçinar, 2013; Symanyuk & Pecherkina, 2016; Nisskaya, 2018), we explored this problem from the standpoint of human agency and studied all categories of students to determine the general patterns of overcoming normative educational crises.

Objective. The study aimed to explore the general criteria of agency — capacity to use psychological resources to solve problems and achieve goals — while overcoming normative educational crises (crises of adaptation to new learning conditions).

Design. The participants were 383 students aged 7–18 years (81 first graders, 84 fifth graders, 110 tenth graders, and 108 freshmen). Students’ agency and psychological resources were surveyed at the beginning of the first academic year at the new educational level. Adaptation criteria (informational, behavioral, and affective) were estimated at the end of the academic year. By using the k-means method of cluster analysis, each category of students was divided into clusters with similar agency indicators. We also compared agency indicators, abilities, and personal traits in these clusters by using U-tests and exploring correlation links between the psychological resources and adaptation criteria indicators in each cluster by Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.

Results and Conclusion. In each age category of students, we observed many significant correlation links between the psychological resources and adaptation criteria indicators only in the cluster of students with a high agency level. We also found only isolated correlation links (or absence of links) between the psychological resources and adaptation criteria indicators in the clusters of students with a low agency level. This finding confirms our hypothesis that only students with a high level of agency use their psychological resources to successfully overcome normative educational crises. Students with a low agency level do not use their resources in full during normative educational crises: These students, despite their capacities, have a negative emotional state and problems in learning and behavior. This finding is also true for each age category of students. Thus, without human agency qualities, the intellectual and personal resources of students can remain unused during the period of adaptation and further training, as the results of the study demonstrated.

Background. In this article, we present the results of a study on the fathering characteristics of Russian men, in early and middle adulthood, brought up with and without a father. There is a theory that fathering practices are determined both by early childhood experiences, as well as by marital relationships in adulthood, because of the links between co-parenting and fathering. Thus, we hypothesize that the fathering characteristics of men in early and middle adulthood, brought up with and without a father, will be different.

Objective. We studied the characteristics of fathering and marital satisfaction in middle adulthood among Russian men brought up without a father, who suffered from paternal deprivation in childhood.

Design. Ninety married men (48 fathers who experienced paternal deprivation in childhood and 42 men brought up in two-parent families) were assessed on a number of measures.

Results. The statistical analysis of the data, including descriptive statistics, t-test and correlation analysis, let us distinguish between the two groups of fathers. Significant t-test differences between the two groups were found in caregiving identity, breadwinning identity, attitudes towards parenting, and marital satisfaction. Also, men brought up in paternally deprived homes, unlike the men from two-parent families, were more likely to indicate difficulties with father-child relationships and gender role conflict in parenting, and give greater relevance to their female partners’ attitudes and expectations towards their fathering.

Conclusion. The lack of a father’s influence on men in childhood strengthens the influence of marital relationships on fathering, in maturity.

Background. It has been demonstrated that preterm birth negatively affects the neurocognitive and socioemotional development of a child. It is therefore important to identify the factors that can decrease potential risks for atypical development in preterm infants. The social environment which surrounds a child is considered to be one such factor. We hypothesize that parent responsiveness positively influences the development of a preterm child.

Objective. The purpose of this research is to reveal differences in the development of two one-year-old preterm children whose parents have exhibited opposite types of parent responsiveness.

Design. Based on the analysis of video recordings of child-parent interactions, we identified two children whose parents registered opposite patterns of responsiveness. Parent responsiveness was measured based on Parent Respon- siveness Markers Protocol methodology. The Bayley-III was used to assess the children’s cognitive and socioemotional development.

Results. We identified that the preterm child whose parent showed a high level of parental responsiveness had normative levels of neurocognitive development, socioemotional skills and adaptive behavior. The preterm child, whose parent showed a low level of parental responsiveness, scored lower on the Bayley-III.

Conclusion. Preterm birth not only affects infant development, but also has a psychological impact on parents, evoking fear and anxiety for their child. This affects parental behavior and their responsiveness towards their child. This study showed that parent responsiveness has a positive effect on the neurocognitive and socioemotional development of a preterm child. Further research should focus on assessing the role of parent responsiveness in child development using a larger sample.