Issues in the multi-cultural assessment of parent-child interaction: An exploratory study from the starting early starting smart collaboration

A national, multi-site study of behavioral health services integration developed a parent-child interaction assessment tool and culturally anchored videotape protocol. Representatives from programs serving Chinese, Native American1, Latin-American, African-American, and Anglo-American families discussed cross-cultural issues in parenting and developed a set of guiding principles for the assessment of parent-child interaction, resulting in a revised Parent-Child Observation Guide (PCOG: Bernstein, Percansky, & Hans, 1987 [Bernstein, V. J., Percansky, C., and Hans, S. L. (1987, April). Screening for social-emotional impairment in infants born to teenage mothers. Paper presented at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD]) and program-specific laboratory protocols. Data from ratings of videotapes of 683 preschoolers and their primary caregivers are presented. Across ethnic groups, parental sensitivity correlated with child involvement and parental discipline correlated with child compliance. Mean PCOG factor scores differed between ethnic groups, and correlations between PCOG factors and independent measures of child social skills and family environment differed across groups, suggesting that different aspects of parent-child interaction may have more salience in different ethnic groups. The collaborative process and how “best practice” was applied to the development of the PCOG and videotape protocol as well as strengths and limitations of the PCOG are discussed.