Bernard, K., Frost, A., Jelinek, C., & Dozier, M. (2019). Secure attachment predicts lower body mass index in young children with histories of child protective services involvement. Pediatric Obesity, 14(7), e12510. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijpo.12510
Participants were recruited through referrals by Child Protective Service agencies. After receiving parental consent, children were randomized to either ABC-Infant or the comparison condition, which also provided home visits. Sixty-three percent of children in the analytic sample identified as African American, 20 percent as biracial or multiracial, 9 percent as Hispanic, and 8 percent as Caucasian. Among parents reporting income data, 93 percent reported incomes below the poverty level. The average maternal age at the child’s birth was 28, and children were younger than 24 months at the time of referral.
Newark, Delaware
ABC-Infant consisted of 10 weekly hour-long home visits. The sessions focused on five topic areas: providing nurturance, following the child’s lead, refraining from frightening behavior, parents recognizing the effect of their own childhood experiences on their parenting behavior, and learning the importance of touch and children’s emotions. Across all sessions, parent trainers engaged parents in structured activities with their children and then provided feedback on observations of participants’ parenting behavior, both in real-time and by playing back video recordings from the sessions.
Comparison families received Developmental Education for Families (DEF) in home visits that were of the same duration (10 hour-long sessions) and frequency (weekly) as ABC-Infant. DEF was designed to enhance cognitive and linguistic development. For this study, components related to parental sensitivity were excluded.
Trained parent coaches conducted home visits and participated in weekly group supervision, including video review by a trained supervisor.
This research was supported in part by Award Numbers R01MH052135, R01MH074374, and R01MH084135 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02093052. Study registration was assessed by HomVEE beginning with the 2014 review.
Bernard, K., Frost, A., Jelinek, C., & Dozier, M. (2019). Secure attachment predicts lower body mass index in young children with histories of child protective services involvement. Pediatric Obesity, 14(7), e12510. https:doi.org10.1111