Validation of the AMBIANCE-brief for Applied Practice with High-Risk Families

• In Event: 3-190 - Correlates, Mediators, and Consequences of Disrupted Parenting Behavior within Atypical Populations

Integrative Statement

Background: Despite the significant resources that governments and non-state institutions worldwide have dedicated to identifying children who are most at-risk developmentally, there remains a discernable lack of empirically-based tools that can be implemented in community agencies. Indeed, the lack of validated tools for use in community practice have been highlighted as one of the major challenges facing the knowledge-to-practice gap (Cicchetti, 2006). Specifically, a community-identified need exists for a feasible assessment measures of disrupted parenting behaviors, which are often observed in families at high social risk.

Disrupted caregiving behavior has been identified as one of the most well-validated indicators of maladaptive child outcomes, including disorganized attachment and behavioral problems (e.g., Lyons-Ruth et al., 1999; Madigan et al., 2006). The gold-standard measure of disrupted caregiving, the Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification System (AMBIANCE; Bronfman, Madigan, & Lyons-Ruth, 2009), has well-established reliability and validity, with evidence of its use in high-risk samples. However, coding the AMBIANCE requires a substantial investment of time (i.e., approximately 80+ hours for training) and resources, highlighting a need for a brief assessment tool of disrupted caregiving that is psychometrically sound, clinically useful, and easy to administer and score by front-line staff in clinical and community-based settings. As a preliminary step in this process, we identified a reduced set of behavioral indicators maximally informative to the AMBIANCE coding system using latent-trait, item response theory (IRT) models. The primary aim of the current study was to establish evidence of validity for this reduced item-set, known as the AMBIANCE-brief. We hypothesized that the AMBIANCE-brief would demonstrate convergent validity with the full AMBIANCE, postdictive validity with maternal unresolved states of mind, and predictive validity with infant disorganized attachment.

Method: An archival sample of 99 adolescent mothers were used for this study. Mothers completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) when infants were 6 months. At 12 months, mothers and infants completed the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), as well as play sessions (with and without toys). Maternal disrupted caregiving was coded from the play sessions using the AMBIANCE and AMBIANCE-brief.

Results: Bivariate correlational analyses examined the relationships between the AMBIANCE, AMBIANCE-brief, maternal unresolved states of mind, and infant disorganized attachment. The AMBIANCE-brief demonstrated high convergent validity with the full AMBIANCE (r = .66, p < .01). The AMBIANCE-brief demonstrated postdictive validity with maternal unresolved states of mind (r = .25, p < .05). Predictive validity of the AMBIANCE-brief was also demonstrated with infant disorganized attachment (r = .30, p < .05).

Conclusions: The current work represents an initial step in the development of shorter protocols which are more efficient for clinicians and other practitioners to use in practice settings. Future studies are needed to establish evidence of validity and clinical utility of the AMBIANCE-brief in applied practice settings.

Authors

• Jessica Cooke, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Calgary and Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute
  Presenting Author

• Rachel Eirich, University of Calgary
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicole Racine, University of Calgary
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andre Plamondon, Université Laval
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sheri Madigan, University of Calgary and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, Calgary
  Non-Presenting Author