Background

Home visiting programs constitute an important policy to support vulnerable families with young children. One of their principal aims is to improve infant-parent relationships, so a key measure of their effectiveness is based on observational measures of parent-children interactions. In the present study we provide novel evidence on the effectiveness of home visiting programs in improving mother-child interactions within a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Pro Kind program. A major goal of the Pro Kind program is to promote child development by strengthening the intuitive parenting skills of mothers. On this basis, the following research question is addressed in this paper: What is the impact of the Pro Kind home visitation program on the quality of mother-child interaction?

Methods

A randomly chosen subsample of the original sample was selected to participate on video recordings. This subsample of 109 mother-child dyads was videotaped during a 3-min typical play situation at the participants’ homes when the child was aged 25 months. We use a novel micro-coding system which allows us to examine how the intervention affected the dynamic feedback responses of both mothers and children in three key measures of behavior: orientation, positive contingency, and negative/lack of contingency. The analysis was conducted using a set of static probit models and dynamic cross-lagged panel probit models for each measure.

Results

The intervention significantly improved the interactions between girls and their mothers, by increasing the prevalence of orientation and positive contingency (and reducing that of negative/lack of contingency). This was achieved by increasing both the persistence of positive behaviors and also the probability of switching from negative to positive behaviors in the treatment group. Mixed impacts were detected for boys.

Conclusions

Overall, it can be said that the Pro Kind program has a positive impact on the quality of mother-daughter interaction. However, our findings might also influence the design and delivery of home visiting programs, to the extent that they suggest that more attention has to be devoted to the interactions between boys and their mothers. Furthermore, the results show the importance of careful dynamic modelling of interactions data from videotaped observations to have a more complete understanding of the effectiveness of home visiting programs.

中文翻译：

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家访对母子互动的影响：来自使用动态微观数据的随机试验的证据

背景

家访计划是支持有幼儿的弱势家庭的一项重要政策。他们的主要目标之一是改善婴儿与父母的关系，因此衡量其有效性的一个关键指标是基于亲子互动的观察措施。在本研究中，我们提供了新的证据，证明在Pro Kind计划的随机对照试验 (RCT) 中，家访计划在改善母子互动方面的有效性。Pro Kind 计划的一个主要目标是通过加强母亲直观的育儿技巧来促进儿童的发展。在此基础上，本文提出以下研究问题：Pro Kind家访项目对母子互动质量有何影响？

方法

选择原始样本的随机子样本参与视频录制。当孩子 25 个月大时，这个由 109 个母子二人组成的子样本在参与者家中 3 分钟的典型游戏情况下被录像。我们使用一种新颖的微编码系统，它使我们能够检查干预如何影响母亲和儿童在三个关键行为指标中的动态反馈反应：定向、积极的偶然性和消极/缺乏偶然性。对每个度量使用一组静态概率模型和动态交叉滞后面板概率模型进行分析。

结果

通过增加定向和积极偶然性的流行（并减少消极/缺乏偶然性），干预显着改善了女孩与其母亲之间的互动。这是通过增加积极行为的持久性以及治疗组从消极行为转变为积极行为的可能性来实现的。检测到男孩的混合影响。

结论

总的来说，可以说Pro Kind计划对母女互动的质量产生了积极的影响。然而，我们的发现也可能影响家访计划的设计和实施，以至于他们表明必须更多地关注男孩和他们的母亲之间的互动。此外，结果显示了对来自录像观察的交互数据进行仔细动态建模的重要性，以便更全面地了解家访计划的有效性。