Untitled Experimental Home Visiting Program for Adolescent Mothers

Guide to Effective Programs
for Children and Youth

UNTITLED, EXPERIMENTAL, HOME-VISITING PROGRAM FOR ADOLESCENT MOTHERS

OVERVIEW

This home-visiting program for teenage mothers attempts to change or to prevent skewed developmental expectations and undesirable child-rearing attitudes to appropriate expectations and positive attitudes. In turn, the child will have more warm and positive experiences with the mother, and he or she will have fewer developmental delays. The mother is also expected to view her child’s temperament as less difficult as a result of the intervention, ultimately resulting in her increased enjoyment of the interactions she has with her child. The program was found to have desired impacts on the mother’s developmental expectations of her child, the mother’s child-rearing attitudes, and perceptions of the baby’s temperament, as well as impacts on the baby’s mental and motor development.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target Population: low-income, adolescent, African-American mothers

Twice a month, for four months, a trained interventionist and a work/study student who is adolescent, black, and female visit the homes of mothers who are adolescent and black. The visits last about half an hour, and include information on developmental milestones and parenting techniques. The mother is given suggestions for play and for passive physical exercises to interact with her baby and to strengthen the baby’s mental and motor development. The home visitors encourage the mother to perform exercises for five minutes at a time totaling 25 to 30 minutes per day.

EVALUATIONS OF PROGRAM

Field, T. M., Widmayer, S. M., Stringer, S., & Ignatoff, E. (1980). Teenage, lower-class, black mothers and their preterm infants: An intervention and developmental follow-up. Child Development, 51, 426-436.

Evaluated Population: Five groups of infants (N=150) were recruited: preterm infants and their teenage mothers (N=60), full-term infants and their teenage mothers (N=30), preterm infants and their adult mothers (N=30), and full-term infants and their adult mothers (N=30). The teen mothers were less than 19, had ten years of education on average, and were living with their parents. One third of the infants were cared for by grandmothers or other relatives during school hours, when the mother was in classes.

Approach: Preterm infants and their teenage mothers (N=60) were randomly assigned to a home-visiting treatment group (N=30) and a control group (N=30). The reported comparisons between these two groups will be shown here. At infant age of four months, the mother was measured on developmental expectations, child-rearing attitudes, feeding interactions, face-to-face interactions, blood pressure, anxiety, and perception of the infant’s temperament. The infant’s weight, length, head circumference, and blood pressure were assessed.

At eight months, the infants were measured on mental, motor, and behavioral development, mother and infant on blood pressure, and the mother reported her perception of the infant’s temperament. The mothers were rated on emotional and verbal stimulation provided to the infant at home.

Results: At four months the home-visited, preterm infants had significantly heavier weight, longer length, and higher developmental scores compared with the control group infants. The home-visited mothers had significantly higher developmental expectations, meaning more reasonable expectations, compared with control group mothers. Furthermore, the home-visited mothers had more appropriate child-rearing attitudes, and they perceived their child’s temperament to be less difficult, compared with control group mothers. Raters scored both the home-visited infant-mother pairs significantly more positively for the face-to-face interaction, compared with the control group infant-mother pairs. The rest of the measures at four months of the infant’s age were nonsignificant.

At eight months, the home-visited infants scored significantly higher on mental development and significantly lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Program impacts were found for how stimulating the home environment was, the home-visited group had significantly more stimulating environments. Visited mothers had significantly higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure ratings compared with the control group mothers, but the visited mothers did rate their infants as having easier temperaments. The rest of the measures at eight months of age were nonsignificant.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References:

KEYWORDS: Infants (0-12 months), Adolescents (12-17), High School, Males and Females (co-ed), Female-only, Adolescent Mothers, Black/African American, Home-based, Parent Training/Education, Home Visitation, After School Program, Anxiety Disorders/Symptoms, Health Status/Conditions, Parent-child Relationship.

Last Updated on April 26, 2010