An examination of cross-racial comparability of mother-child interaction among African American and Anglo American families

This study examined the cross-racial comparability of maternal quality of assistance and supportive presence coded from a video protocol using data from the Infant Health and Development Program for low-birth-weight, premature 30-month-olds and their mothers. Evidence of equivalence of measures is necessary before comparisons can he made across groups. Multiple-group mean and covariance structures analysis was used to demonstrate the invariance of the measures and make comparisons for Anglo American and African American treatment and comparison groups of dyads. Comparisons across groups indicated similar variances and correlation between child and maternal behavior. Differences were found between the mean scores, with Anglo American treatment families scoring the highest.