HOME INVENTORY AND NCATS - RELATION TO MOTHER AND CHILD BEHAVIORS DURING NATURALISTIC OBSERVATIONS

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships among the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS), the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory, and interactive behaviors observed in the home for fifty-three 9-year-old, prematurely born children and their mothers. The total HOME score showed high int ernal consistency, with moderate subscale levels. NCATS total score sh owed high internal consistency, but low to moderate subscale consisten cy. Combining NCATS subscales into a mother subscale and child subscal e improved internal consistency. The HOME and the NCATS mother subscal e correlated with observed maternal behaviors, but the NCATS child sub scale was unrelated to child behaviors. Relationships between observed behaviors and HOME scores did not differ for high- and low-education mothers or for Caucasians and African Americans, but only low-educatio n mothers and African Americans exhibited correlations between NCATS s cores and observed behaviors. These results show the HOME, NCATS, and naturalistic observations measure related, but not overlapping, aspect s of the mother's contribution to her relationship with her child, but the NCATS child subscale should be used with caution with 3-year-olds . (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.