Where are parents' skills the strongest - and how can they be encouraged to better support young children's cognitive, social, and language development? Home visitors can find out in minutes with PICCOLO trade; the quick, reliable observational tool designed to assess and monitor the quality of parent-child interactions. Developed for use with parents of children ages 1 to 3, PICCOLO measures 29 developmentally supportive parenting behaviors in 4 critical domains - Affection, Responsiveness, Encouragement, and Teaching. It's the best way to assess which parenting behaviors are working, develop individualized interventions that help parents improve, and track the positive outcomes of your parent support program.

This User's Guide gives readers explicit guidance on using the PICCOLO, including a Frequently Asked Questions section. A discussion about the tool's development and psychometric properties section are also included. The appendix includes a photocopiable Spanish translation of the PICCOLO and the scoring key for the video clips on the PICCOLO DVD.

Contributions by: Sheila Anderson, Kathy Christiansen