Hudson Alan, Reece John, Cameron Christine, Matthews Jan
School of Health Sciences, RMIT University, Plenty Road, Bundoora, VIC 3083, Australia.
J Intellect Dev Disabil. 2009 Jun;34(2):123-32. doi: 10.1080/13668250902850426.
Previous research has reported on the effectiveness of the Signposts program for supporting families of children with an intellectual disability and difficult behaviour (Hudson et al., 2003; Hudson, Cameron, & Matthews, 2008). This paper reports on an investigation of the extent to which child characteristics moderate the effectiveness of the program.
Data collected from 689 participants in the Signposts program were analysed to examine if the child characteristics of gender, age, or associated disability impacted on outcomes.
The gender analyses produced mean effect sizes of 0.39 for boys and 0.42 for girls; however, this difference was not statistically significant. The age analyses produced mean effect sizes of 0.38 for children aged 2-5 years, 0.42 for children aged 6-12 years, and 0.30 for children aged 13-18 years; however, these differences among the age groups were not statistically significant. The associated disability analyses across 7 groups produced mean effect sizes ranging from 0.31 to 0.75; however, the differences among these groups were not statistically significant.
First, gender was not a moderating variable. Second, while the effect size for the older age group seemed to be marginally lower than that of the other two groups, age was not found to be a moderating variable. Finally, type of associated disability was not found to be a moderating variable. Methodological limitations of the study necessitate care in interpreting the findings.
先前的研究报告了“路标计划”在支持智障及行为困难儿童家庭方面的有效性（哈德森等人，2003年；哈德森、卡梅隆和马修斯，2008年）。本文报告了一项关于儿童特征在多大程度上调节该计划有效性的调查。
对从“路标计划”的689名参与者收集的数据进行分析，以检验儿童的性别、年龄或相关残疾特征是否会影响结果。
性别分析得出男孩的平均效应量为0.39，女孩为0.42；然而，这种差异在统计学上并不显著。年龄分析得出2至5岁儿童的平均效应量为0.38，6至12岁儿童为0.42，13至18岁儿童为0.30；然而，这些年龄组之间的差异在统计学上并不显著。对7个组的相关残疾分析得出平均效应量在0.31至0.75之间；然而，这些组之间的差异在统计学上并不显著。
第一，性别不是调节变量。第二，虽然年龄较大组的效应量似乎略低于其他两组，但年龄并未被发现是调节变量。最后，相关残疾类型未被发现是调节变量。该研究的方法学局限性使得在解释研究结果时需谨慎。
