Enhancing Parent- Child Interactions through Home Visiting: Promising Practice or Unfulfilled Promise?

Abstract

Many intervention programs use home visiting to target enhanced parent-child interactions; however, few studies have examined specific intervention strategies, limiting the potential utility of evaluation results to guide practice, research, or policy effectively. In this paper, we recommend that researchers and program evaluators open the "black box" of home visiting intervention strategies. We initiate this effort by exploring the overall intervention processes in two home visiting programs and describing specific strategies (e.g., coaching and modeling) interventionists used during triadic interactions with the parent and child together. One study included 28 families parenting a child with a disability and receiving Part C services, and the second study included 92 families receiving Early Head Start services. Interventions were not homogeneous across programs or families. Minimal time was focused on facilitating parent-child interactions; when these strategies were used, however, mothers were more likely to be engaged in the intervention activities.

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