Testing maternal depression and attachment style as moderators of early head start's effects on parenting

Abstract

This study examined maternal depression, attachment avoidance, and attachment anxiety as moderators of Early Head Start's effects on four parenting outcomes assessed at age three. Participants (N = 947) were drawn from six sites of the Early Head Start National Research and Evaluation Project, a multi-site randomized trial. Findings suggest more positive program effects for mothers with less initial attachment avoidance or attachment anxiety. First, baseline attachment avoidance moderated Early Head Start program effects on observed maternal supportiveness, such that program mothers with lower baseline attachment avoidance were rated as more supportive of their three-year-olds than program mothers with higher baseline attachment avoidance. Second, program effects on spanking varied depending on mothers' baseline attachment anxiety.

Keywords:

• maternal depression
• attachment style
• parenting
• Early Head Start

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by NIMH K01MH70378 awarded to Lisa Berlin. The findings reported here are based on research conducted as part of the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project funded by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), US Department of Health and Human Services under contract 105-95-1936 to Mathematica Policy Research, Princeton, NJ, and Columbia University's National Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, in conjunction with the Early Head Start Research Consortium, and by research conducted through grant 90-YF-0004 to Utah State University, grant 90-YF-0025 to the University of Pittsburgh, grants 90FY0009 and 90FY0017 to the University of Colorado, and grant 90-YT-0013 to the University of Washington. The research is part of the independent research these universities conducted with 6 of 17 local Early Head Start programs participating in the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study. The authors are members of the Early Head Start Research Consortium.

The Consortium consists of representatives from 17 programs participating in the evaluation, 15 local research teams, the evaluation contractors, and ACF. Research institutions in the Consortium (and principal researchers) include ACF (Rachel Chazan Cohen, Judith Jerald, Esther Kresh, Helen Raikes, and Louisa Tarullo); Catholic University of America (Michaela Farber, Harriet Liebow, Nancy Taylor, Elizabeth Timberlake, and Shavaun Wall); The National Center for Children and Families at Columbia University (Lisa Berlin, Christy Brady-Smith, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Allison Sidle Fuligni); Harvard University (Catherine Ayoub, Barbara Alexander Pan, and Catherine Snow); Iowa State University (Dee Draper, Gayle Luze, Susan McBride, Carla Peterson); Mathematica Policy Research (Kimberly Boller, Jill Constantine, Ellen Eliason Kisker, John M. Love, Diane Paulsell, Christine Ross, Peter Schochet, Cheri Vogel, and Welmoet van Kammen); Medical University of South Carolina (Richard Faldowski, Gui-Young Hong, and Susan Pickrel); Michigan State University (Hiram Fitzgerald, Tom Reischl, and Rachel Schiffman); New York University (Mark Spellmann and Catherine Tamis-LeMonda); University of Arkansas (Robert Bradley, Richard Clubb, Andrea Hart, Mark Swanson, and Leanne Whiteside-Mansell); University of California, Los Angeles (Carollee Howes and Claire Hamilton); University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (Robert Emde, Jon Korfmacher, JoAnn Robinson, Paul Spicer, and Norman Watt); University of Kansas (Jane Atwater, Judith Carta; and Jean Ann Summers); University of Missouri-Columbia (Mark Fine, Jean Ispa, and Kathy Thornburg); University of Pittsburgh (Beth Green, Carol McAllister, and Robert McCall); University of Washington School of Education (Eduardo Armijo and Joseph Stowitschek); University of Washington School of Nursing (Kathryn Barnard and Susan Spieker), and Utah State University (Lisa Boyce, Gina Cook, Catherine Callow-Heusser, and Lori Roggman).

The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Health and Human Services. We thank Yu Bai for assistance with data analysis and Jamilah Taylor for assistance with manuscript preparation.

Notes

1. Because mothers in one of the six sites completed the adult attachment questionnaire up to six months after enrollment (as opposed to at baseline), all regression models were run with and without the data from this site. Findings were virtually identical. Thus, analyses of the data from all six sites are presented.