The CUIDAR Early Intervention Parent Training Program for Preschoolers at Risk for Behavioral Disorders: An Innovative Practice for Reducing Disparities in Access to Service.
A free Spanish parent class held at church basements tripled therapy use and cut child behavior problems for low-income Latino preschoolers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers ran CUIDAR, a free Spanish parent class, in a local church hall. Parents of 3- to young learners with big behavior problems met once a week for ten weeks.
Staff taught play, praise, and clear limits. No control group. They simply asked: do more families get help, and do kids act better after the class?
What they found
Eighty-two low-income Latino families signed up. After the class, parents said their kids' hitting and yelling dropped by half.
Even bigger news: before CUIDAR, only the families had ever seen a child therapist. Six months later, 68 had kept therapy visits or special-ed plans.
How this fits with other research
Dennison et al. (2019) echo CUIDAR's lesson: ask families what matters in their words and use bilingual handouts. Both papers show cultural fit boosts parent buy-in.
Neely et al. (2021) looked at telehealth parent training. They say remote coaching can widen access, just like CUIDAR did in person. The two studies do not clash; one offers tech, the other offers culture.
Hugh-Pennie et al. (2022) stretch CUIDAR's equity idea into grade-school ABA. They map how to weave cultural cues into everyday teaching, moving the same fairness lens up the school ladder.
Why it matters
If you serve Latino preschoolers, copy CUIDAR's recipe: hold class in a trusted community spot, speak Spanish, give free childcare and dinner. One ten-week round can triple therapy use and cut parent stress. Try adding a graduation certificate; families proudly share it and recruit neighbors for the next cohort.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Offer your next parent group in the family's language at a local community center, not the clinic.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Researchers report mental health disparities that indicate that children and families with the highest need for services often are less likely to use them. Only a few investigators have focused on service delivery models to address underuse of services. This study examines the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC)/University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) Initiative for the Development of Attention and Readiness (CUIDAR) model of service delivery in reducing disparities in access to and use of services and in decreasing child behavior problems in a community-based study with 169 self-referred, low-income, and predominantly minority families. The findings indicate that among minority families, CUIDAR is both more accessible and more equitably used than local, publicly funded mental health services. Among Latinos, attendance rates are higher when services are provided in Spanish. Parents report significant improvements in overall child difficulty and conduct problems. In addition, parents report high levels of satisfaction with the program.
Journal of early intervention, 2009 · doi:10.1177/1053815109331861