| PORTO |
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| Partners (institutional) name | University of Porto |
| Responsible person (for the project) | Prof. Dr. Ana Isabel Pinto |
| Address | Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto Rua Alfredo Allen 4200-325 Porto |
| Homepage | http://sigarra.up.pt/up/web_page.inicial |
| Main area of work concerning early childhood intervention (ECI) | The University of Porto is currently the largest education and research institution in Portugal. Close to 31000 students, 2300 teachers and researchers along with 1700 administrative staff attend its 15 schools and 69 scientific research units, (3 university campuses. Currently, 6500 postgraduates of the nearly 31000 students attend the 273 degrees, masters and doctoral courses in a variety of programmes (700/year).
Around 2000 international students choose this university to complete their higher education. 69 research units are responsible for over 20% of the Portuguese articles indexed each year in the ISI Web of Science. Over half were classified as “Excellent” or “Very Good” by the latest international evaluations. Among its 15 schools, the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (1976/77 to present) has 1500 students and over 1200 participants per year come to FPCEUP for continuous education and professional training. |
| Former or present other project activities concerning ECI and ICF | Since 1999, in collaboration with Prof.Simeonsson, this research group has been using the ICF (WHO, 2001) to document dimensions of health, disability and risk factors in children. The group focused on the process of identifying the modification and addition of content needed to develop a child and youth version of ICF (Simeonsson, Pereira, & Scarbourough, 2003). Our group runs a research project focusing on Participation issues in children with disabilities in early ages. It uses a framework of assessment-intervention-follow-up to design and implement rehabilitation plans based on ICF-CY (ECI Project of Matosinhos): to identify measures that can be mapped to ICF-CY codes. Also ICF-CY core-sets for ASD are developped linking measures most currently used in PT for the assessment of pre-school children with autism with the ICF-CY dimensions. Studies at MA level are being developed concerning the use of ICF- CY. |
| What else is important and one should know about this institution | Within the FPCEUP the Center of Psychology has 63 professors, 6 postdoc researchers, 54 doctoral students, 41 of which with funded grants. Integrating this Center, our research groupg (Center of Developmental Psychology and Children Education – CPDEC) has been devoted since 1985 to study Development, Family and Educational Contexts, focusing on: (1) early childhood life contexts quality (namely daycare, preschool and home environment) and its influence on child development;(2) Child engagement and interactions with peers and adults in inclusive settings; (3) Early Childhood intervention (ECI) services and practices, namely eligibility issues and the use of the ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health); (4) Development of children with multiple disabilities and/or communication problems; (5) Theoretical issues in Developmental Psychology, namely Philosophy of Science and Epistemology. The team members have been involved in several funded research projects with international partnership, from which several master and doctoral thesis were completed and publishing scientific papers in peer reviewed international journals |
