THE ACTS AND CONDITIONS OF THE CAREGIVING ENVIRONMENT - REPLY

In this response to McCartney and Black (1995), the point is made that our purpose in presenting the two-tiered approach to classifying the acts and conditions of caregiving was to offer a framework that was mo re in keeping with current ecological developmental theories than most other approaches to measuring or classifying the elements of caregivi ng. Their idea of constructing a system that could reliably capture al l the dynamic features of transactions, including a child's subjective responses, although laudatory, seems very difficult to achieve. Thus, the proposed approach focuses on an objective system of classificatio n that moves in the direction of capturing the dynamics of transaction s while still meeting scientific criteria for reliable placement into categories. The argument is made that scientifically useful descriptio ns of caregiving environments can be attained using a systematic, obje ctive approach to classifying acts and conditions of the environment e ven while recognizing that all children do not respond the same to tho se acts and conditions. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.