The present study examined the development of phonological and reading skills in 171 students (98 males, 73 females) from the beginning of first grade (Time 1) to the end of second grade (Time 4). Based on their reading and intelligence scores at the end of second grade, these students were placed into nondisabled (ND), reading disabled (RD), or garden-variety poor reading (GV) groups. Although each group made gains in phonological processing, large differences were found between the ND and RD/GV groups. The RD and GV groups performed similarly on many of the tasks. Consistent with the literature, it was found that intelligence does not differentiate between good and poor readers. The most important finding of the present study was that reader-group membership at Time 4 could be very accurately determined from students' Time 1 scores. All of the children in the RD and GV groups were correctly identified, and only 3 of the 148 ND children were misclassified, indicating that children at risk for reading difficulties can be very accurately identified very early in their academic experiences.

This paper describes an outcome investigation into two clinical groups of mothers and young children receiving short-term music therapy. The first group was a closed group of mothers and toddlers receiving six-weekly music therapy sessions. The second group was an ongoing group of parents and babies receiving one music therapy session followed by a discussion of videotaped excerpts of this music therapy session a week later. As a point of comparison, a group of children and parents attending a local nursery school receiving six-weekly music sessions run by a music therapist was also investigated. Video analyses, audio analyses and parent's questionnaires were used to measure results. Comparing information collated from the questionnaires to results of the video analyses revealed that parents attending the clinical group viewed their children's behaviours in a less positive light than control group parents.The article is written from the music therapist's viewpoint. This group music therapy work is described and reflected upon in a more qualitative way in a previous article entitled "'Mummy can play too ... 1/ Short-term music therapy with mothers and young children/ published two years ago in the BjMT.

This article describes two short-term music therapy groups with mothers1 and young children at the Croft Unit for Child and Family Psychiatry. As there is very little documented music therapy work with this client group, the authors examine literature that describes other therapeutic interventions and that looks at the links between mothers and young children's behaviour. This literature review suggests that early intervention with parents who are experiencing difficulties with their children is both important and useful. The article goes on to hypothesise why music therapy is a particularly effective way of working with mothers and young children and to examine the small amount of other documented work by music therapists with this client group. The two treatment groups with parents and young children at the Croft are then described and analysed in some detail. The authors reflect on the particular role music therapy plays in the treatment packages offered at the Croft.