Adapting the Unique Minds Program: Exploring the Feasibility of a Multiple Family Intervention for Children with Learning Disabilities in the Context of Spain

• Date: 01 June 2017
• Author: Rosa M. González‐Seijas,Silvia López‐Larrosa,John S. W. Carpenter
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12215
• Published date: 01 June 2017

Adapting the Unique Minds Program: Exploring the

Feasibility of a Multiple Family Intervention for

Children with Learning Disabilities in the Context of

Spain

SILVIA L 

OPEZ-LARROSA*

ROSA M. GONZ

ALEZ-SEIJAS*

JOHN S. W. CARPENTER

†

The Unique Minds Program (Stern, Unique Minds Program, 1999) addresses the socio-

emotional needs of children with learning disabilities (LD) and their families. Children

and their parents work together in a multiple family group to learn more about LD and

themselves as people with the capacity to solve problems in a collaborative way, including

problems in family school relationships. This article reports the cultural adaptatio n of the

program for use in Spain and findings from a feasibility study involving three multiple

family groups and a total of 15 children and 15 mothers, using a pre-post design. This

Spanish adaptation of the program is called “Mentes 

Unicas”. Standa rdized outcome mea-

sures indicated an overall statistically significant decrease in children’s self-rated malad-

justment and relationship difficulties by the end of the program. Improvements were

endorsed by most mothers, although they were not always recognized by the children’s

teachers. The program had a high level of acceptability: Mothers and children felt safe,

understood, and helped throughout the sessions. The efficacy of the adapted intervention

for the context of Spain remains to be tested in a more rigorous study.

Keywords: Learning Disabilities; Multiple Family; Primary School Children; Cultural

Adaptation

Fam Proc 56:423–435, 2017

The adaptation of therapeutic interventions for use with families in different countries

and with diverse cultures is an important task for clinicians and researchers

(McLeigh, Katz, Davidson-Arad, & Ben-Arieh, 2015; Parra-Cardona et al., 2012). Cultural

adaptation is the modification of an intervention to make it compatible with a client popu-

lation’s culture, meanings, and values (Bernal, Jim

enez-Chafey, & Domenech-Rodr

ıguez,

2009) and implies changes to the content of the intervention and to delivery of the service

(Domenech-Rodr

ıguez, Baumann, & Schwartz, 2011) with two main goals: achieving

treatment efficacy and cultural relevance (Sigmarsd

ottir & Guðmundsd

ottir, 2013;

Sigmarsd

ottir, Thorlacius, Guðmundsd

ottir, & Degarmo, 2014).

*Psicolog

ıa Evolutiva y de la Educaci

on, Facultad de Ciencias de la Educaci

on, Universidade da Coru~

na, A

Coru~

na, Spain.

†

School for Policy studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Silvia L

opez-Larrosa, Psicolog

ıa Evolu-

tiva y de la Educaci

on, Facultad de Ciencias de la Educaci

on, Universidade da Coru~

na, Campus de Elvi~

na,

A Coru~

na 15071, Spain. E-mail: silvia@udc.es.

Thank you to the participant children and their families, to the schools and their staff and to Carmen

V

azquez de Prada, Genma Diaz Paradela, and Nicoleta Casangiu.

423

Family Process, Vol. 56, No. 2, 2017 ©2016 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12215