Habilidad emocional del profesional de atención temprana y prácticas relacionales y participativas con la familia

Resumen

The present investigation arises from the interest to contribute to improve the quality of the integral development of the child and his family, and the effectiveness of the professional in his interventions in Early Intervention. The general objective of the research is to analyze the influence of emotional skills in the use of relational and participatory practices in Early Intervention professionals, this objective is specified in the following specific objectives (a) Develop an instrument for professionals to assess their professional practice in Early Intervention with the family, attending to their relational and participatory dimensions; (b) To know the assessment that the professionals make of the relational and participative practices that they develop in their intervention with the family in Early Intervention; (c) Evaluate different Emotional Intelligence skills in Early Intervention professionals; (d) Analyze if there are differences in the assessment of professional practice based on Emotional Intelligence skills measured in Early Intervention professionals; (e) Identify the emotional profile of Early Intervention professionals according to the type of action. The participants were 420 professionals, belonging to 91 centers distributed in 13 Autonomous Communities. Among the professional profiles of the participants are Physiotherapy (78), Speech Therapy (97), Social Work (36), Psychology (104), Pedagogy (55), Special Education Teacher (19), Early Childhood Education Teacher (9) and Neuropediatry (2). The ages of the participating professionals ranged between 21 and 41 years, with the average age being 36 years. A predominance of the female gender was observed (387 women versus 25 men). Regarding the years worked in Early Intervention, 65% of the participants have been working in this field for between five and ten years. The instruments used were two. On the one hand, the Inventory on Professional Practice in Early Intervention (IPPAT), to learn about the development of relational and participative practices by the professional. The final instrument includes 15 items related to relational practices, 26 items for participatory practices and 4 items related to outpatient work, these items being presented randomly. The scale of assessment of each item, in reference to the usual practice of the professional, is 5 points that correspond to the verbal labels of Never, Almost Never, Sometimes, Almost Always and Always. The reliability reached in these items on relational practices was a Cronbach's alpha of .721, .897 for participatory practices and .911 the value reached for the instrument as a whole. On the other hand, for the evaluation of Emotional Intelligence, the Trait Meta-Mood Scale scale (TMMS-24) was used, adapted by Fernández-Berrocal, Extremera and Ramos (2004). This instrument evaluates the meta-knowledge of emotional states through 24 items distributed in three features of 8 items each: Emotional attention (ability to feel and express feelings), Emotional clarity (ability to recognize our emotional states) and Emotional repair (ability to face and channel our emotional states). The instrument is completed according to the degree of agreement for each item, as a Likert scale with scores from 1 = Not at all agree, 2 = Somewhat agree, 3 = Fairly agree, 4 = Strongly agree and 5 = Strongly agree agreement. This scale has a quick and easy administration. In addition, it has excellent reliability and usefulness (Espinoza et al., 2015, Extremera & Fernández-Berrocal, 2004). The results obtained in relation to each specific objective have been: (a) the IPPAT instrument has an important validity and high reliability; (b) depending on the workplace, statistically significant differences were found in participatory practices. In terms of family participation, statistically significant differences were found in participatory practices, when the professionals who have the family present and this one intervenes; (c) the professionals, at a general level, show an Emotional Attention, slightly for something below what the test authors consider. In any case, clarity and repair professionals score within the parameters, and indicates that there is room for improvement; (d) professionals who score higher in the dimensions of emotional ability value, above their peers, relational and participatory practices; (e) it is demonstrated that, if the professionals achieve an adequate emotional attention and an excellent emotional reparation and charity, they also score higher in the assessment they make of their relational and participatory practices.