The study examines the reliability and validity of a coding scale of assess toddler social competence as an outcome of mother- toddler eating interactions. Social competence refers an interactive style of engagement; cooperation and positive affect. Incompetent social behavior, manifested as behavior problems, is stable throughout early childhood and is associated with problems in adolescence. Social competence is typically assessed and intervened in school years, yet its foundation must originate as the toddler explores the social environment and forms understandings about the self in relation to others. Unlike infancy, no established measure is available to assess feeding interactions during toddlerhood. Mealtimes provide consistent and predictable mother-toddler social experiences from which the toddler establishes interactions patterns. This tool will provide knowledge about dyadic interaction patterns, the processes in which social competence develops through early social relationships, and can be applied to identifying and intervening with at-risk families and children. Toddlers' social behaviors in relation to maternal behaviors will be analyzed in video-taped observations of 126 mother-toddler dyads during snack, collected in a larger study. Stability and reliability of the new scale will be examined at 12, 24 and 36 months of age and during kindergarten; validity will be tested using measures from the larger study.
| Spegman, Adele Mattinat; Houck, Gail M (2005) Assessing the feeding/eating interaction as a context for the development of social competence in toddlers. Issues Compr Pediatr Nurs 28:213-36 |
