Poster #52 - Comparing approaches for measuring quality of parent-infant relationships among families experiencing homelessness

• In Event: Poster Session 12

Abstract

Positive parent-child relationships have been demonstrated to act as powerful resilience factors for preschool-aged children experiencing family homelessness, but little is known about parent-infant relationships in this context (Fanning et al., 2021; Haskett & Armstrong, 2019). Because infants are prevalent among families experiencing homelessness and there are unique challenges for parenting in shelters that stably housed families do not experience, more attention to parent-infant relationships is warranted (Bradley et al., 2018). Our goal is to compare different approaches to measuring parent-infant relationships in families experiencing homelessness to identify best approaches in these high-risk contexts.
Participants were 61 infants with their parents residing in shelters for families experiencing homelessness in the Philadelphia area. Infants were 55.7% male gender and 5.7 months old on average (SD=3.38). The parents in this sample were predominantly biological mothers (93.4%), 88.3% identified as Black or African American. Half reported being currently unemployed, and 25% reported having less than a high school education. Parents were 29.3 years old on average (SD=6.6). Structured interviews and tasks including a 15-minute unstructured free play session were conducted onsite in private spaces within the shelters.
Quality of the parent-infant relationship was assessed with three different methods: an observed interaction, a speech sample (FMSS), and a brief self-report scale. Direct observation of dyadic free play interactions was assessed with the Emotional Availability Scales, with videos coded by a team of raters (ICC = .71) on six dimensions including parent sensitivity and parent nonhostility (Biringen, 2000). The FMSS (Magana et al., 1985) involved an audio-recorded free-form verbal response to a prompt describing their child and the relationship, later coded for degree of expressed warmth and expressed negativity (ICC = .79). The self-report measure was the Developmentally Appropriate Expectations subscale of the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2; Bavolek & Keene, 2010).
Bivariate correlations revealed significant associations between sensitivity and nonhostility from observational measures and expressed warmth and negativity from the speech sample (e.g., r=.45, p<.001 for sensitivity with warmth; r =-.34, p<.001 for nonhostility and negativity). observed sensitivity and expressed warmth. Self-reported parenting was not significantly associated with either the observational codes or the speech sample. In linear regression models, the observational measure predicted speech sample measures controlling for child age, parent age, weeks in shelter, parent depression scores, and parent self-report (see Table).
Self-report questionnaires are one of the most common methods for assessing parenting and parent-child relationships, due to their ease of administration. However, the results of this study suggest that parent self-report was not informative for parent-infant dyads experiencing homelessness. Our findings show that the efficient FMSS approach can be used as a valid index of quality of parent-infant interaction in this population. It is important that researchers know about and use the best measures to conduct research with families experiencing homelessness, so that more research of high quality can be conducted to inform basic science and appropriate interventions.

Authors

• Lucretia Charlotte Dunlap, Villanova University
  Presenting Author

• Ashmita Ghosh, Villanova University

• Janette E. Herbers, Villanova University