Karin Fängström

I am a licensed psychologist and have done my PhD in CHAP. My research concerns preschool children and I am involved in several projects where children make their voices heard. This can be about children's experiences of their home situation or how they feel about interventions in care or welfare. I am also responsible for developing and evaluating a new health service model for early intervention for children aged 1.5-6 years with neurodevelopmental problems.

Young children often have difficulty in having their voices heard with regard to questions that concern them, for example, how they experience interventions within preventative care and healthcare. Therefore, it is important to find simple and good methods to be able to evaluate the interventions from the child’s perspective.

In My Shoes (IMS) is a computer-assisted interview tool developed specifically to help children talk about their experiences and emotions in different situations and with different people. The trained interviewer uses the computer program together with the child as the same time as questions are posed and the child responds.

I my project, we have investigated the feasibility and validation of IMS through interviewing children aged 4-5 years old about what they remember from their latest visit at the Child Health Center. In the first study, we explored the feasibility of IMS. In the second study, we validate IMS through comparing the IMS interviews with standard verbal interviews. The third study aims to investigate the subgroup of shy children and if they benefit from being interviewed with IMS. The fourth study will examine the interaction between the child and the interviewer in the interviews.

Nuvarande forskningprojekt handlar om att ta fram, prova och utvärdera en föräldrakurs som riktar sig till föräldrar med barn i åldern 2-6 år som har neuropsykiatriska svårigheter. Kursen tas fram tillsammans med mödra- och barnhälsovårdspsykologer specialpedagoger, BHV-sjuksköterskor samt utifrån föräldrars och barns behov. Kursen har provats och utvärderats kvalitativt.