Validation of the AMBIANCE‐brief: An observational screening instrument for disrupted caregiving

Abstract

Resulting from a community-identified need for a well-validated indicator of caregiving difficulties for use in practice settings, a brief form of the Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification System (AMBIANCE) was developed for use as a screening instrument. Prior to its dissemination, this study aimed to assess the feasibility, reliability, and validity of the AMBIANCE-Brief. Adolescent mother-infant dyads (N = 69) participated in the Strange Situation Procedure, as well as play sessions with and without toys. Maternal disrupted caregiving was coded from the play sessions using the AMBIANCE and AMBIANCE-Brief. The AMBIANCE-Brief demonstrated convergent validity with the AMBIANCE in the play session with toys (r = .65, p < .001) and without toys (r = .61, p < .001). Concurrent validity of the AMBIANCE-Brief was also demonstrated in relation to infant attachment disorganization in the play session with toys (r = .36, p < .05) and without toys (r = .32, p < .01). These findings suggest a shorter protocol for assessing disrupted caregiving may be feasible and valid for use in community settings. Future studies are in progress to train community practitioners in the use of the AMBIANCE-Brief and to evaluate their reliability. K E Y W O R D Satypical parenting, disorganized attachment, disrupted caregiving, mother-infant assessment, screening RESUMEN Como resultado de una necesidad identificada por la comunidad para un indicador bien validado de dificultades en la prestación de cuidado para uso en escenarios prácticos, se desarrolló una forma breve del Sistema del Instrumento de Conducta Materna Atípica para la Evaluación y Clasificación (AMBIANCE) para ser usado como instrumento de detección.Antes de ser diseminado, la meta de este estudio fue de evaluar la posibilidad, confiabilidad y validez de AMBIANCE-Abreviado. Las díadas de madres adolescentes e infantes (N = 69) participaron en el Procedimiento de la Situación Extraña, así como en sesiones de juego con y sin juguetes. La interrumpida prestación de cuidado materna fue codificada a partir de las sesiones de juego usando AMBIANCE y AMBIANCE-Abreviado. El AMBIANCE-Abreviado demostró una validez convergente con AMBIANCE en la sesión de juego con juguetes (r = .65, p < .001) y sin juguetes (r = .61, p < .001).También se demostró la validez concurrente de AMBIANCE-Abreviado en relación con la desorganización de la afectividad

Prospecting the attachment research field: a move to the level of engagement

“…Several research groups have research lines underway to develop and test instruments that ultimately could be suitable for use by practitioners (e.g. Cooke et al, 2020;Forrer et al, 2018). Coordination and exchange between such lines might speed up cycles of development, independent validation, and synthesis of data considerably, building on the infrastructure for collaborative work that the field has been building across decades, such as training institutes and forums such as Attachment & Human Development (Duschinsky, 2020).…”

“…averting risk; Devaney & Spratt, 2009), providing input for a research agenda that matches these needs. Such dialogue has, for example, led to the development of brief assessment instruments for atypical parental behavior (Cooke et al, 2020) and the testing of protocols for intervention-informed decision-making (Cyr & Alink, 2017;Van der Asdonk et al, 2019). As such, attachment research that responds to these concrete needs may be seen as solutionfocused, even though in the case of complex systems, solutions will remain partial and the process will be iterative and tailored towards locally agreed problem formulations (Greenhalgh & Papoutsi, 2018).…”

Feasibility of training service providers on the AMBIANCE‐Brief measure for use in community settings

“…However, in family service settings, there is often considerable stress and scrutiny imposed on the family by involvement with family services (e.g., supervised access visits), so each agency will need to consider what constitutes an appropriate observation strategy for that setting. As the AMBIANCE-Brief system can be coded in real time (see Cooke et al, 2020), video recording interactions is not required if such resources at not available. Additional research using the AMBIANCE-Brief in different observa-tional contexts will be an important direction for future research.…”

“…First, the most informative items in the full AMBIANCE coding inventory were identified using latent trait modeling via item response theory (Haltigan et al, 2019). Second, the reliability and validity of this shortened measure, the AMBIANCE-Brief (Madigan, Bronfman, Halitgan, & Lyons-Ruth, 2018), was demonstrated in laboratory settings in relation to disorganized attachment (Cooke, Eirich, Racine, Lyons-Ruth, & Madigan, 2020; Haltigan Key Findings and their Implications for Practice/Policy 1. Following a 2-day training, 89% of participants (family service agency workers) became reliable in the use of the AMBIANCE-brief.…”

“…First, the most informative items in the full AMBIANCE coding inventory were identified using latent trait modeling via item response theory (Haltigan et al., 2019). Second, the reliability and validity of this shortened measure, the AMBIANCE‐Brief (Madigan, Bronfman, Halitgan, & Lyons‐Ruth, 2018), was demonstrated in laboratory settings in relation to disorganized attachment (Cooke, Eirich, Racine, Lyons‐Ruth, & Madigan, 2020; Haltigan et al., 2019). The objective of the current study was to determine the feasibility of training family services agency providers, who are working directly with families at high social risk, in the reliable use of the AMBIANCE‐brief measure, within a relatively brief 2‐day training period that would not strain agency resources.…”