I will then explain how we went about evaluating the program, and give a profile of the people who participated in the trial. Lastly, I'll talk about the results of the trial and discuss the implications of these results. Their children are regarded as being at higher than average risk for both injury from accidents and serious illness caused by ineffectively met health care needs. Many parents in the community need some assistance in learning to take care of the health and safety needs of their children. Resources are available to help them, however these are aimed at the general population and usually do not cater for parents with special needs.
Programs tend to be conducted in groups, at community venues.
They usually rely on reasonably complex verbal instructions and written material and require quite a bit of initiative on the parent's part. Recent research has also shown that with support and education matched to their learning needs, these parents can learn to provide effective health and safety care for their children. In studies by Llewellyn and her colleagues, generic and specialist service providers in NSW voiced their concerns about the limitations of programs currently available for parents with special learning needs and talked about the lack of resources specifically designed for these parents. The home learning program we trialled was developed and tested by Professor Alexander Tymchuk at the University of California Los Angeles and is the cumulation of 20-odd years of empirical research in the area. It is based on teaching principles which have been shown to be effective with people with special learning needs.