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1. A R T I C L E
CAREGIVING BY LOW-INCOME ADOLESCENT
MOTHERS AND THE LANGUAGE ABILITIES
OF THEIR 30-MONTH-OLD CHILDREN
TOM LUSTER
MARCIA VANDENBELT
Department of Family and Child Ecology, Michigan State University
ABSTRACT: The primary question of interest in this study was: Are the caregiving practices of low-income,
teenage mothers during the first 2 years of their children’s lives predictive of individual differences in
the language abilities of their 30-month-old children? This question was addressed with a sample of 76
teenage mothers and their children who were participating in a family support program. Various measures
of caregiving behavior, assessed when the children were 6, 12, and 24 months old, were significantly
related to scores on the Preschool Language Scale— 3, the Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary
Test, and Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Tests of the children.
RESUMEN: La pregunta esencial de interes en este estudio es la de si las practicas de dar cuidado ofrecidas
´ ´
por madres adolescentes de bajo recursos economicos, durante los dos primeros anos de vida de sus ninos,
´ ˜ ˜
ayudan a predecir las diferencias individuales enlas habilidades de lenguaje de sus ninos de 30 meses de
˜
nacidos. Esta pregunta fue respondida con una muestra de 76 madres de la edad antes mencionada, y sus
ninos, quienes participaron en un programa de apoyo familiar. Varias medidas de la conducta de prestar
˜
cuidado, evaluadas cuando los ninos tenıan 6, 12 y 24 meses, fueron relacionadas significativamente a
˜ ´
los resultados en la Escala de Lenguaje Pre-escolar que equivalen a-3, la Prueba de Vocabulario Expresivo
de la Figura de una Palabra, y las Pruebas de Vocabulario Receptivo de la Figura de una Palabra, por
parte de los ninos.
˜
´ ´
RESUME: La principale question etudiee dans ce travail etait la suivante: les pratiques de mode de soin de
´ ´ ´
meres adolescentes de milieux defavorises peuvent-elles, durant les deux premieres annees de la vie de
` ´ ´ ` ´
leurs enfants, predire les differences individuelles des capacites de langage de leurs enfants de 30 mois?
´ ´ ´
Cette question a ete etudiee chez un echantillon de 76 meres adolescentes et leurs enfants qui partiicipaient
´´´ ´ ´ `
a un programme de soutien familial. Differentes mesures de comportement de mode de soin, evalue
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lorsque les enfants avaient 6, 12, et 24 mois, etaient particulierement liees aux scores a l’Echelle de
´ ` ´ `
Support for the Family TIES Program and the evaluation of the program was provided by the Mott Children’s Health
Center in Flint, MI. The authors would like to thank Laura Bates, Brooke Foulds, Sandra Frassetto, Ronda Jackson,
Bettie Johnson, Cynthia Jones, Katherine Kenebrew, Jenny Kent-Bryant, Judith Peck Key, Dr. Mary Mittelstaedt,
Corine Scheuneman, Kathryn Sims, Robyn Swanson, Marva Williams, and Robin Williams for assisting with the data
collection process. In particular, we acknowledge Mary McCaffery for conducting the language assessments on the
children for this study. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for
Research in Child Development, Washington, DC, March, 1997. Address correspondence to: Tom Luster Ph.D.,
Department of Family and Child Ecology, 101 Morrill Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824-1030. E-mail: lus-
ter@pilot.msu.edu.
INFANT MENTAL HEALTH JOURNAL, Vol. 20(2), 148– 165 (1999)
1999 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health CCC 0163-9641/99/020148-18
148

2. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 149
Langage d’Age Prescolaire– 3. Le Test de Vocabulaire Expressif Un Mot Une Image, et aux Tests de
´
Vocabulaire Receptif Un Mot Une Image passes par les enfants.
´ ´
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die wesentlichste Frage der Studie war: Sind die Betreuungsart von armen, jugen-
dlichen Muttern wahrend der ersten zwei Lebensjahre ihrer Kinder bestimmend fur individuelle Differ-
¨ ¨ ¨
enzen in der Sprachkenntnis ihrer 30 Monate alten Kinder? Dieser Frage wurde in einer Studiengruppe
von 76 jugendlichen Muttern und deren Kinder, die an einem Familienunterstuzungsprogramm teilnah-
¨ ¨
men, nachgegangen. Verschiedene Messungen des Betreuungsverhaltens beim 6, 12 und 24 Monate alten
Kind waren signifikant mit den Ergebnissen der Vorschul— Sprachmessung–3, dem expressiven Ein-
Wort— Ein-Bild Vokabeltest und dem rezeptiven Ein-Wort Ein-Bild Vokabeltest der Kinder, verbunden.
* * *
Although there are large within-group differences, children of adolescent mothers tend to
score lower than peers born to older mothers on measures of cognitive competence, particularly
in the postinfancy period when assessments become more dependent on language skills (Fur-
stenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Chase-Lansdale, 1989; Hayes, 1987; Wadsworth, Taylor, Osborn,
& Butler, 1984). By the time they enter school, children of teenage mothers score lower than
peers on achievement tests, are more likely to be retained in grade, and are eventually at risk
for dropping out of school (Brooks-Gunn & Chase-Lansdale, 1995: Brooks-Gunn, Guo, &
Furstenberg, 1993).
As Brooks-Gunn and Chase-Lansdale (1995) pointed out, many questions remain about
the reasons why children born to teenage mothers fare less well than peers born to older
mothers. It seems likely that a number of factors contribute to the poorer outcomes of these
children (e.g., poverty, family structure). One of these factors may be the caregiving they
receive from their young mothers. Comparisons of the caregiving practices of teenage mothers
and more mature mothers show that, on average, teenage mothers: (a) tend to provide less
verbally stimulating environments for their infants; (b) tend to receive lower scores on measures
of the home environment, such as the HOME inventory (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984); and (c)
often display more negative affect and less positive affect when interacting with their infants
(Barratt & Roach, 1995; Brooks-Gunn & Chase-Lansdale, 1995; Culp, Osofsky, & O’Brien,
1996; Luster & Mittelstaedt, 1993).
Although several studies have shown differences between teenage and older mothers in
their caregiving practices, and other studies have reported differences in the developmental
outcomes of children born to younger and older mothers, few studies have examined the relation
between caregiving practices by teenage mothers and the developmental outcomes of their
children (Brooks-Gunn & Chase-Lansdale, 1995; Hubbs-Tait, Osofsky, Hann, & Culp, 1994).
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the caregiving practices of
low-income, teenage mothers and the language abilities of their 30-month-old children. Based
on studies of children from other segments of the population, we expected caregiving practices
to be predictive of language development (Baumwell, Tamis-LeMonda, & Bornstein, 1997;

3. 150 ● T. Luster and M. Vandenbelt
de Villiers & de Villiers, 1978; Walker, Greenwood, Hart, & Carta, 1994). However, the
caregiving arrangements for children of teenage mothers are often complex and subject to
change as the roles of the young mothers (e.g., student, employee, full-time caregiver) change
over time. Because of these complex and changing caregiving arrangements, we believe that
it is important to study the extent to which the caregiving practices of the teens are predictive
of the developmental outcomes of their children, rather than assuming that the findings for
low-income teenage mothers will mirror the findings for more mature mothers.
Early studies of the caregiving practices of teenage mothers showed that many teen mothers
provide less verbal stimulation for their children than other caregivers. For example, Osofsky
and Osofsky (1970) observed adolescent mothers before and during a pediatric exam, and rated
the mothers positively on levels of warmth and physical interaction, but assigned low scores
for verbal interaction. Epstein (1980) identified three types of parenting styles by teenage
mothers: (a) sharing (sensitive, responsive, and authoritative); (b) directive (commanding, in-
trusive, and authoritarian); and (c) a relatively nonverbal style in which only the physical needs
of the babies were attended to by the mothers. Epstein found that the nonverbal style was the
most characteristic of the 98 teens in her sample. More recent studies confirm these early
findings that many teenage mothers provide their children with relatively unstimulating lan-
guage environments (Brooks-Gunn & Chase-Lansdale, 1995; Culp, Culp, Osofsky, & Osofsky,
1991; Culp, Osofsky & O’Brien, 1996). For example, Culp, Osofsky, and O’Brien compared
the speech of adolescent and older others and found that adolescent mothers spoke fewer words,
made fewer utterances while sharing a joint focus of attention with their infants, described and
labeled objects less often, gave more commands, and displayed positive affective speech less
often than older mothers. Given that teenage mothers were recognized as providing environ-
ments for their infants that were low in verbal stimulation as early as 1970, it is surprising to
us that there is relatively little research examining the relationship between caregiving practices
by teenage mothers and the language abilities of their children.
Wadsworth and her colleagues (1984) studied a birth cohort of children from Great Britain
who were born between April 5 and 11, 1970. Included in the sample of nearly 12,000 children
were approximately 1100 children born to mothers under the age of 20. The children were
tested with the English Picture Vocabulary Test (EPVT), a measure of receptive vocabulary,
when they were 5 years old. Children born to teenage mothers scored lower on the test than
their peers even when other factors were controlled. However, several variables included in a
multivariate analysis were stronger predictors of EPVT scores than maternal age, including
socioeconomic status, gender (boys scored higher), birth weight, health visitors’ assessments
of home furnishings, and breast feeding. In this study, separate analyses were not conducted
on the subsample of children born to teenage mothers.
Studies in the United States have used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY)
to examine factors related to individual differences in scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary
Test (PPVT; Dunn & Dunn, 1981) among children born to adolescent mothers (Barratt, 1991;
Moore & Snyder, 1991). Moore and Snyder found that early childbearing was associated with
lower scores on the PPVT for Caucasian children, but not for African-American or Hispanic
children. They also examined several potential influences on children’s receptive vocabulary,
conducting separate analyses for each of the ethnic groups. In all three ethnic groups, families
who received more favorable scores on a shortened version of the HOME inventory had chil-
dren with higher scores on the PPVT. Mothers’ scores on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test
(AFQT), a measure of intellectual ability, also predicted PPVT scores for Caucasian and Af-
rican-American children, but not for Hispanic children. In the Hispanic subsample, children
performed better on the PPVT if their mothers had completed high school.

4. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 151
Thus, large-scale surveys in the United States and Great Britain suggest that the environ-
ments that children of teenage mothers experience may contribute to depressed scores on
measures of receptive vocabulary. However, as is typical of large studies involving national
samples, the amount of information available on the caregiving the children received was
limited because of the practical problems involved in collecting such data.
One recent study that did collect extensive information on caregiving by teenage mothers
and related it to children’s PPVT scores at 44 months was conducted by Hann, Osofsky, and
Culp (1996). They found that children who performed better on the PPVT had mothers who
displayed more positive affect at the 13 and 20-month assessments, and engaged in more verbal
reciprocity at 20 months. A cumulative demographic risk index was also associated with lower
PPVT scores when mother – infant interaction measures were controlled.
Like the study by Hann and her colleagues (1996), the present study explores the rela-
tionship between caregiving and language abilities in children born to teenage mothers with a
small sample of families that was studied more intensively than families in the large-scale
surveys described above. The families in this sample were involved in a family support pro-
gram, and data were collected regularly on the caregiving practices of the young mothers as
part of the evaluation of the program. Half of the families in the study received weekly home
visits from a paraprofessional family advocate; more extensive information is available on
caregiving practices of the young mothers in this subsample than the teens who received less
intensive services. The family advocates, who knew the families intimately and were knowl-
edgeable sources about the teens’ caregiving practices, provided ratings of parenting (e.g.,
warmth, responsiveness) that could be used in this study to address the primary question of
interest. Other measures of caregiving, such as assessments of the home environment, were
available for the young mothers from both treatment groups (i.e., those receiving the Home-
Visiting Program and those receiving less intensive services). Thus, a positive feature of the
present study is that longitudinal data are available on the caregiving practices of the teens,
and data on caregiving were collected from diverse sources in more than one setting.
Consistent with an infant mental health perspective, we hypothesized that the overall qual-
ity of the relationship between an infant and caregiver would be predictive of language devel-
opment. This hypothesis is supported by the findings from a meta-analysis of seven studies
examining the relation between quality of attachment (secure vs. insecure) and the language
abilities of children (van Ijzendoorn, Dijkstra, & Bus, 1995). Infants who were rated as securely
attached in Ainsworth’s Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) tended
to perform better on later language assessments. Language acquisition is likely to be facilitated
by caregivers who are sensitive and verbally responsive to their infants, who are highly involved
with their infants, and who provide labels for objects and actions (Baumwell et al., 1997; Culp
et al., 1996). Caregivers also provide playthings for their infants and a great deal of language
stimulation is provided for infants as they interact with caregivers around these objects. Al-
though there is value in focusing on specific aspects of parenting that may influence language
development, our view is that it is the overall environment that the child experiences over time
that is most important (i.e., the whole is greater than the sum of its parts). As infant mental
health researchers and practitioners have long noted, specific caregiving practices occur in the
context of a relationship and in the context of the overall emotional climate in the home. So
the amount of verbal stimulation that the mother provides is important, but its effect is likely
to depend on whether it is done in the context of a warm relationship that is characterized by
interactional synchrony between the caregiver and infant. The play materials in the home are
likely to be important for cognitive growth, but the extent to which the playthings draw care-
giver and infant into joint activities is also important. For these reasons, the primary focus of

5. 152 ● T. Luster and M. Vandenbelt
this paper is the overall caregiving environment that the young mothers provide for their chil-
dren. However, additional information is provided about the relation between more specific
caregiving practices and the language capabilities of the children as well.
METHOD
Participants
The sample for this study was 76 children whose language ability was assessed when they
were 30-month-olds, and their mothers who were teenagers when the children were born. All
of the children were firstborn. The families were involved in Family TIES (Trust, Information,
Encouragement, Support), a 5-year family support program provided by the Mott Children’s
Health Center in Flint, Michigan. Family TIES was designed to help teenage mothers cope
with early childbearing and to support the development of their children so that the children
ultimately arrived at school prepared to succeed in that setting.
To be eligible for the Family TIES program, the teens had to come from low-income
families (150% of poverty or less), be school eligible, and expecting their first child. At en-
rollment, the teens ranged in age from 13 to 19, with a mean of 16.0 years. At the intake
interview, the pregnant teens were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. Those
assigned to the more intensive treatment received weekly home visits from a paraprofessional
family advocate; they are referred to here as the Home-Visited Group. As the acronym for the
program suggests, the family advocate attempted to establish a trusting relationship with the
teens and their families, provided information about services available in the community and
about child care and parenting, provided emotional and instrumental support (e.g., emergency
food, diapers, transportation), and encouraged the mothers to pursue the goals of the program
(e.g., high school completion). Each of the six advocates in the Home-Visited Group had a
caseload of 12 clients when the program began (N 72).
In the less intensive treatment group, referred to as the Standard Program Group, one
family advocate provided services to approximately half of the teens in the program (70 clients
at enrollment). This advocate was housed at the health center and worked with the teens
primarily via phone and mail. The advocate for the Standard Program provided essentially the
same types of services (e.g., information, encouragement) and promoted the same goals (e.g.,
high school completion) as the advocates in the more intensive treatment group. However,
because of the relatively high case load, this advocate had considerably less contact with each
of her clients and therefore the depth of the relationship between the client and provider differed
for the two groups. Extensive data were collected on the teens at enrollment, and the two
groups did not differ significantly on any of the key variables assessed at that time. Additional
information about the Family TIES program can be found in earlier publications (Luster, Perl-
stadt, McKinney, Sims, & Juang, 1996: Luster, 1998).
Thirty-six children from the Home-Visited Group and 40 children from the Standard Pro-
gram participated in a language assessment when the children were 30 months old. Children
from the two treatment groups did not differ, on average, on any of the language measures.
Therefore, data from the two treatment groups were combined for this study. The racial com-
position of the sample reflected the community from which the participants were drawn. Most
of the mothers and infants were African-American (63%) or Caucasian (30%). The remaining
dyads were Hispanic (3%) or biracial (5%). Fifty-five percent of the children who were assessed
at 30 months were male. Eighty-eight percent of the mothers in the sample were never married,
11% were married, and one mother was divorced. Twenty-three percent of the teens were living
with their mothers at the time of the 30-month assessment.

6. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 153
Attrition
Data used for this study were collected at five points in time — at enrollment (prenatal period)
and when the children were 6, 12, 24, and 30 months old. Of the 142 teens who enrolled in
Family TIES, the number of clients who participated in subsequent assessments was 124 at 6
months, 116 at 12 months, 99 at 24 months, and 85 at 30 months. For various reasons, complete
data were not available for all teens and infants who participated in assessments at particular
points in time. For example, although 116 teens participated in the 12-month assessments, only
106 completed the videotaped teaching task at the health center that was used as one indicator
of caregiving. The HOME inventory, which was also assessed at 12 months in the teen’s home,
was completed for only 83 of the clients; those who did not complete this part of the assessment
typically refused to be interviewed at home or repeatedly broke interview appointments, or
when they were interviewed at home the infant was being cared for elsewhere. Similarly, 85
young mothers participated in the 30-month assessments, but language ability was assessed for
only 76 of their children. The research team went to great lengths to maintain contact with the
teens and keep them involved in the study, but only 60% of the mothers who enrolled in Family
TIES and 54% of their firstborn children participated in the 30-month assessment.
An analysis was conducted to determine if those who participated in the 30-month as-
sessment differed from those who were not assessed on data collected at enrollment. Partici-
pators and nonparticipators did not differ on most key variables assessed at enrollment such
as age, mothers’ level of education, fathers’ level of education, educational aspirations, or
expectations, and locus of control orientation. However, those who did not participate at 30
months received more favorable scores on a measure of childrearing beliefs, the Adult – Ado-
lescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI; Bavolek, 1984). Significant differences in the scores of
participators and nonparticipators were found on two of the four subscales of the AAPI, in-
appropriate expectations and empathy; for the other two belief subscales, corporal punishment
and role reversal, differences between the two groups approached statistical significance
(p .10). Although differences were found on the childrearing belief measure assessed at
enrollment, those who participated did not differ significantly from those who did not partic-
ipate in the 30-month assessment on any of measures of caregiving assessed at 6, 12, and 24
months.
Measures
Measures of caregiving. For children in both treatment groups, caregiving was measured when
they were 12 and 24 months old. Three measures of caregiving were used. The home environ-
ment was measured for both groups at 12 and 24 months, and maternal behavior was assessed
in a videotaped teaching task at 12 months. Each of these measures is described below. In
addition, the Home-Visited teens were rated on several dimensions of parenting by their family
advocates when the children were 6 and 24 months old. The family advocates in the Home-
Visited Group were asked to complete these ratings because of their extensive involvement
with, and knowledge about, their families. The family advocate for the Standard Program had
considerably less contact with her families and therefore was not asked to complete the par-
enting ratings.
Home environment. The overall quality of the home environment was assessed when the
infants were 12 months old with the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment
(HOME; Caldwell & Bradley, 1984). The HOME is a widely used measure and earlier studies
demonstrated that the HOME is predictive of individual differences in the cognitive competence

7. 154 ● T. Luster and M. Vandenbelt
of children. In all, there are 45 items on the HOME; some items rely on maternal report and
other items are based on observations recorded during the interview, which generally takes
about an hour to complete. Each item is scored yes or no, with yes responses indicating the
presence of positive features of the environment; a total score for the scale is computed by
counting the items that are scored yes. The aspects of the environment assessed by the HOME
are: (a) emotional and verbal responsivity; (b) acceptance of the child’s behavior; (c) organi-
zation of the environment; (d) provision of play materials; (e) parental involvement with the
child; and (f) opportunities for variety. The HOME was administered by a child development
specialist and a social worker who were trained in the use of the instrument. The HOME was
completed on 83 of the families participating in Family TIES; of these families, 61 had children
whose language capabilities were assessed at 30 months. For children who participated in the
language assessment at 30 months, their mothers’ scores on the HOME ranged from 11 to 42
with a mean of 31.0 (SD 7.7).
When the children were 24 months old, the home environment was assessed with the
NCAST HOME (Barnard, 1978), a version of the HOME inventory that can be used in a clinic
setting. At the 24-month assessment, data were collected from 84 families in the program in
the health center during a well-child checkup; 59 of these families had children whose language
was assessed at 30 months. The NCAST HOME, like the original version, comprises 45 items
and covers the same content areas. The NCAST HOME includes observation and self-report
items, but because it is administered in a clinic setting it relies to a greater extent on self-report
than the original version of the HOME. The NCAST HOME was administered by graduate
assistants who conducted the interviews with the mothers and were trained to administer the
instrument. Among those who completed the language assessments at 30 months, the mean
score on this measure was 31.1 (SD 5.5) with a range from 17 to 42.
Teaching task. A maternal teaching task was videotaped at the 12-month assessment. These
videotapes were used to score the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS; Barnard,
1978). All of the tapes were scored as part of a doctoral study by a graduate student who had
received training on the instrument (Mittelstaedt, 1994). In all, 106 of the mother – infant dyads
were assessed with this measure; 68 of these families had children who also completed the
language assessment at 30 months. The 73 items of the NCATS are divided into six subscales,
four focusing on maternal behavior and two on infant behavior. Like the HOME, each item is
scored yes or no, with the number of items scored yes counted for each subscale score. Scores
from the four maternal subscales were summed to produce an overall indicator of the mother’s
teaching skill. The four subscales are: (a) sensitivity to cues, (b) response to distress, (c) social-
emotional growth fostering, and (d) cognitive growth fostering. There are 50 items in these
subscales. For the 68 dyads who participated in the 30-month assessment, the mean NCATS
score was 32.6 (SD 8.0) with a range from 18 to 45.
Advocates’ assessments of caregiving. At the 6- and 24-month assessments, the family ad-
vocates for the Home-Visited Group rated the young mothers on five dimensions of caregiving:
(a) the teen’s ability to read the child’s cues; (b) her responsiveness to the child’s cues; (c) the
degree to which she provided an intellectually supportive environment; (d) how much she
talked with the child; and (e) the amount of warmth displayed to the child. The advocate rated
each dimension on a 5-point scale. Higher ratings were given to the teens who were perceived
by the family advocates as providing relatively supportive care. The five rating scales were
summed to produce composite measures of caregiving at 6 and 24 months. Cronbach’s alpha
for this measure of caregiving was .86 at the 6-month assessment and .94 at the 24-month
assessment. The mean score was 19.0 (SD 4.6) at the 6-month assessment and 18.8 (SD 5.1)

8. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 155
at the 24-month assessment. At the 6-month assessment, scores ranged from 5 to 25; at 36
months, scores ranged from 6 to 25.
The program supervisor for Family TIES, who was also part of the research team, trained
the family advocates in the use of the caregiving rating scales. She also worked individually
with each of the family advocates when they completed the rating scales for their first clients
at the 6-month assessment. Advocates completed a rating only if they could make a rating with
confidence and ratings were completed only for teens who were still involved in the program
at the time the ratings were completed. Ratings were made on 61 teens at the 6-month assess-
ment and 46 teens at the 24-month assessment.
Thus, caregiving was assessed at three points in time before the language assessments were
conducted — 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months. Caregiving was assessed in the home, in
the health center, and from videotapes of the mother and infant during a teaching task. Care-
giving was assessed both by trained interviewers and the family advocates who based their
assessments on weekly home visits over a 2-year period.
Language assessments. The children’s receptive vocabulary and expressive language skills
were assessed for this study by a speech and language specialist from the health center who
was blind to treatment group status and scores on the caregiving assessments. Raw scores on
each of the measures were converted to standard scores based on a population mean of 100
and a standard deviation of 15. In all, 76 children participated in the language assessment.
However, the number of children who completed each of the four language measures varied
from 62 to 70. Children who did not complete all four language measures typically failed to
complete the full battery of tests because of their inability to stay focused on the task. Although
all of the children in the sample would be considered at risk for low achievement based on
their background characteristics, as is shown below, there was considerable variability in the
language capabilities of these children.
The Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (ROWPVT) was one measure used to
assess the child’s receptive vocabulary (Gardner, 1985). In this assessment, the examiner tells
the child the name of a word and the child has to select the picture that matches the word from
a group of four pictures. The items are arranged so that they increase in difficulty. Past research
has demonstrated that the measure is internally consistent; moderate to high correlations were
reported between the ROWPVT and other measures of vocabulary (Gardner, 1985). Sixty-six
of the children in this sample completed the ROWPVT assessment. The mean standard score
for the sample was 81.9 (SD 13.2), with a range from 58 to 118.
The child’s expressive language skills were assessed with the Expressive One-Word Pic-
ture Vocabulary Test - Revised (EOWPVT; Gardner, 1990). In this assessment, the child is
shown a picture and must identify the object that is shown by stating the name of the object.
Like the ROWPVT, past research has indicated that the EOWPVT is a reliable and valid
measure of expressive language ability. Seventy children completed the EOWPVT. The mean
score for the sample was 90.3 (SD 9.8), with a range from 72 to 130.
The Preschool Language Scale — 3 was also used; it includes an expressive language
subscale and a receptive language subscale (Zimmerman, Steiner, & Pond, 1992). The recep-
tive/auditory subscale for 30-month-old children is designed to determine if the children un-
derstand the use of objects (e.g., “Show me what you can ride.”); descriptive concepts (“Which
one is wet?”); part/whole relations (“Show me the door of the car.”); and the use of pronouns
(“Show me, they are playing.”). Seventy children were assessed on the PLS-3 receptive subs-
cale. Scores on the measure ranged from 65 to 115 with a mean of 86.8 (SD 11.4).
The PLS-3 expressive subscale for 30-month-old children assesses their ability to answer
what, where, and yes/no questions (“Is he sleeping?”); use verbs ing (“The boy is playing.

9. 156 ● T. Luster and M. Vandenbelt
Tell me about the girl.”); produce basic sentences (“Tell me about your toys.”); and use pos-
sessives (“This is the boy’s cat. Whose cat is this?”). Sixty-two children completed the ex-
pressive portion of the PLS-3. The mean score for the sample was 94.0 (SD 12.1), with a
range from 65 to 121. The available evidence indicates that the PLS-3 is a reliable and valid
measure of language ability in preschool children (Zimmerman et al., 1992). In the present
study, correlations among the four language measures ranged from .54 (PLS-3 receptive and
EOWPVT) to .74 (PLS-3 receptive and PLS-3 expressive).
Two composite measures of language ability were also created. The composite expressive
language score is the mean of the PLS-3 expressive subscale standard score and the Expressive
OWPVT standard score. The composite receptive language score is the mean of the PLS-3
receptive subscale standard score and the Receptive OWPVT standard score. For either com-
posite measure, if the child only completed one of the language assessments, his or her score
on that measure was used as the composite score. The correlation between the two composite
scores was .77. A recent study has demonstrated that standardized tests of language ability,
such as the measures used in this study, are consistently related to contemporaneous assess-
ments of language that are based on maternal report and transcripts of the child’s spontaneous
speech while interacting with their mothers (Bornstein & Haynes, 1998). Furthermore, the
various assessments of language at 20 months were predictive of verbal ability at 48 months.
RESULTS
The Relation Between Caregiving Practices
and Language Scores
Pearson correlations between the caregiving practices of the teens and the language scores of
their children are presented in Table 1. Because of attrition and varying rates of participation,
the number of cases on which each correlation is based is presented in the Table 1 under the
correlation coefficient.
Scores on the HOME inventory at 12 months and on the NCAST HOME at 24 months
were significant predictors of all four language scales and the two composite measures. Families
who received more favorable ratings on the measures of home environment had children who
scored higher on the language assessments. Similarly, mothers who received more favorable
scores on the teaching task at 12 months had children who performed better on all of the
language assessments at 30 months.
Ratings of caregiving at the 6-month assessment by the family advocates for the Home-
Visited Group were also related to all of the language scores with the exception of the
EOWPVT. The correlations between the advocates’ ratings of caregiving at 6 months and the
other language scores assessed 2 years later ranged from .35 to .56. Children who received
higher scores on the language assessments had mothers who were rated by the advocates as
providing more supportive environments for their children.
Similar results were obtained when advocates’ ratings of caregiving at 24 months were
correlated with the language scores. The correlation between advocates’ ratings of caregiving
and the EOWPVT was not statistically significant. The correlations between advocates’ ratings
of caregiving at 24 months and the other language measures were statistically significant and
ranged from .46 to .56.
As an additional check on the correlations presented in Table 1, partial correlations were
computed between the caregiving indices that were assessed for families in both treatment
groups (i.e., HOME, NCAST HOME, and NCATS) and the language assessments controlling

10. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 157
TABLE 1. Correlations Between Caregiving Measures and Language Assessments
Expressive Receptive Expressive Receptive Composite Composite
Predictor Variable PLS-3 PLS-3 OWPVT OWPVT Expressive Receptive
Caregiving measures assessed
in both treatment groups
Home inventory (12 months) .33* .32* .42* .53* .42* .51*
(46) (53) (50) (48) (54) (58)
NCAST home inventory (24 .29* .33* .38* .51* .39* .45*
months) (48) (51) (52) (50) (55) (58)
Nursing child teaching as- .36* .43* .38* .33* .40* .42*
sessment (subscales 1 (56) (62) (60) (56) (64) (67)
through 4; 12 months)
Caregiving assessed by family
advocates in the home-
visited group only
Family advocates’ compos- .52* .40* .27 .35* .56* .50*
ite caregiving ratings— 6 (28) (32) (29) (27) (32) (35)
months
Family advocates’ compos- .49* .46* .15 .56* .48* .51*
ite caregiving ratings— 24 (25) (28) (24) (23) (27) (31)
months
Note. The number of cases on which the correlation is based is presented in parentheses under the correlation coefficient. One-tailed
tests were used to determine if correlation coefficients were statistically significant.
* p .05.
for treatment group. Controlling for treatment group had a negligible effect on the magnitude
of the correlations, and all correlations remained statistically significant.
The Relation Between Maternal and Demographic Variables
and the Two Composite Language Scores
Because of the findings of Hann and her colleagues (1996), we considered the possibility that
background characteristics of the teenage mother (i.e., SES of the family of origin, her school
success) or her current living arrangement may also be predictive of language scores. In our
sample, which by design was limited to low income families, we found that the two composite
language scores of the children were not related to indicators of the mothers’ school success
(i.e., self-reported GPA and having ever repeated a grade in school), or whether or not the
young mothers were living with their mothers at the time of the language assessments.
T-test results showed that children obtained significantly higher scores on both composite
language measures if their mothers were living with the children’s fathers or a male partner at
the time of the 30-month assessment. On average, children who resided with a father figure
had scores on the composite receptive language measure that were 7.5 points higher than
children who did not reside with a father figure (t -2.85, p .05). Children who lived with
their father or the mother’s boyfriend scored 5.5 points higher, on average, on the expressive
composite measure (t -2.17, p .05).
Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine if the variable “presence of a
father or father figure in the home” added to our ability to predict the composite language
scores of children. The dummy variable, presence or absence of a father figure, was entered as

11. 158 ● T. Luster and M. Vandenbelt
a predictor variable with one of the three caregiving measures that were available for the entire
sample (i.e., 12-month HOME scores, 12-month NCATS teaching scale scores, and 24-month
NCAST HOME scores); the expressive and receptive composite language scores were used as
dependent variables. The presence of a male partner was not a significant predictor of either
language outcomes when the 12-month HOME inventory was controlled. In contrast, HOME
continued to be a significant predictor of language scores when presence of a father figure was
controlled. When the 12-month NCATS teaching scale was controlled, the presence of a father
or father figure was unrelated to the expressive composite scale, but was significantly related
to the receptive language scale; in both analyses, the NCATS teaching scale was a significant
predictor of language scores. In the third set of analyses, the presence of a father or father
figure was entered with the NCAST HOME, administered at 24 months. The presence of a
father figure was predictive of expressive language scores in this analysis, but fell short of
being significant when the receptive composite score was used as the outcome. In both analyses,
the NCAST HOME was a significant predictor of the language outcome.
The teens’ parents’ levels of education were used as indicators of SES. The fathers’ level
of education was unrelated to the language assessments; the teens’ mothers’ education was
significantly correlated with the receptive composite score (r .35). Multiple regression anal-
yses showed that maternal education was not a significant predictor of the composite receptive
language measure when it was entered with the 12-month HOME inventory, but the HOME
continued to be a significant predictor of the language outcome. The teen’s mother’s level of
education was a significant predictor of receptive language scores if either the NCAST HOME
or the NCATS teaching scale was controlled. The education level of the teen’s mother was not
related to expressive language composite scores when any of the three caregiving measures
(HOME, NCAST HOME, or NCATS teaching scale) was controlled.
The Relation Between the Two Composite Language Scores
and Specific Aspects of the Caregiving Environment
It seems likely that children’s language development is influenced by many aspects of their
experience and we believe that global measures of the caregiving environment, such as those
used in this study, are useful as overall indicators of the quality of care that children receive
at home. Nevertheless, some aspects of caregiving may be more strongly associated with lan-
guage capabilities than other aspects. To explore this possibility, a post-hoc analysis was con-
ducted to examine the relation between various subscales of the caregiving measures and two
composite language outcomes. These analyses showed that all six subscales of the HOME
inventory assessed at 12 months were significantly related to both language composite scores
(see Table 2). Correlations ranged from .24 to .44. Three of the four subscales of the NCATS
teaching scale were significantly related to both composite language scales with correlations
ranging from .28 to .46. The response to distress subscale was not significantly related to either
the expressive or receptive composite language scale. Three of the six subscales of the NCAST
HOME, assessed in the health center at 24 months, were significantly related to the two lan-
guage composite scores: (a) emotional and verbal responsivity; (b) provision of appropriate
play materials; and (c) opportunities for variety in daily stimulation. The statistically significant
correlations ranged from .34 to .43.
Similar analyses were conducted with the ratings completed by the family advocates. The
relations between each aspect of the caregiving environment that was rated by the advocates
(e.g., how much the mother talked with the child) and the two language composite scores were
examined. All of the correlations between the advocates’ ratings of caregiving at 6 months and
the two language outcomes were significant with two notable exceptions. Ratings of warmth

12. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 159
TABLE 2. Correlations Between Specific Aspects of the Caregiving Environment and the
Expressive and Receptive Composite Language Scores
Expressive Composite Receptive Composite
Predictor Variable Language Scores Language Scores
HOME inventory subscales (12 months)
Emotional and verbal responsivity .37* .44*
Acceptance of the child’s behavior .28* .33*
Organization of the environment .25* .35*
Provision of play materials .32* .33*
Maternal involvement .30* .43*
Opportunities for variety .24* .27*
NCAST home (24 months)
Emotional and verbal responsivity .40* .39*
Acceptance of the child’s behavior .13 .16
Organization of the environment .00 .01
Provision of play materials .38* .34*
Maternal involvement .02 .02
Opportunities for variety .43* .40*
NCATS teaching scale (12 months)
Sensitivity to cues .28* .36*
Response to distress .15 .12
Social-emotional growth fostering .38* .35*
Cognitive growth fostering .41* .46*
Advocates ratings of caregiving (6 months)
Sensitivity to cues .57* .45*
Responsiveness to cues .36* .49*
Intellectually supportive environment .59* .54*
Verbal stimulation .42* .22
Warmth .22 .28*
Advocates ratings of caregiving (24 months)
Sensitivity to cues .48* .56*
Responsiveness to cues .32† .38*
Intellectually supportive environment .39* .44*
Verbal stimulation .46* .47*
Warmth .52* .50*
*p .05.
†p .05.
were not significantly correlated with expressive language scores, and the amount that the
mother talked to her infant was not related to the receptive composite score. The statistically
significant correlations ranged from .28 to .59. All of the advocates’ ratings of caregiving at
24 months were predictive of the two composite language measures. In contrast to the findings
at 6 months, advocates’ ratings of how much the mother talked with the child at 24 months
were related to the child’s expressive (r . 46) and receptive language composite scores (r
.47). Similarly, ratings of warmth at 24 months were predictive of expressive (r .52) and
receptive language scores (.50).
Thus, these analyses showed that most of the subscales of the caregiving measures we
used and most of the ratings of caregiving by the family advocates were positively and signif-
icantly correlated with both language outcomes. All of the correlations were small to moderate
in magnitude, with most of the coefficients in the .25 to .50 range.

13. 160 ● T. Luster and M. Vandenbelt
TABLE 3. Correlations Among the Caregiving Measures
Variable 1 2 3 4 5
(1) Home inventory 12 months 1.0
(2) NCAST home 24 months .69* 1.0
(3) NCATS 12 months .53* .43* 1.0
(4) Advocates’ ratings of caregiving— 6 months .27* .47* .46* 1.0
(5) Advocates’ ratings of caregiving— 24 months .57* .48* .34* .51* 1.0
Note. A one-tailed test of significance was used. The analyses were limited to families whose children participated in the language
assessment at 30 months.
* p .05.
Relations Among the Caregiving Measures
As the final step in the analyses, the Pearson correlations among the various indicators of
caregiving quality were computed. These correlations were computed to determine the con-
sistency with which the caregiving practices of the teens were viewed across observers and
across time. These analyses included only families who had children who were assessed on at
least one of the language measures. The results of these analyses are presented in Table 3.
Moderate correlations were found among the various caregiving measures. The correlation
between the two versions of the HOME inventory (administered in the home and the health
center) that were assessed 12 months apart was .69. The correlation between the advocates’
ratings of caregiving at 6 months and the advocates’ ratings of caregiving 18 months later was
.51.
DISCUSSION
The central question addressed in this study was: Are the caregiving practices of low-income,
teenage mothers predictive of individual differences in the language abilities of their 30-month-
old children? Clearly, caregiving practices of the young mothers were predictive of the chil-
dren’s language abilities. Assessments of caregiving made at different points in time (i.e., when
the child was 6, 12, and 24 months), in different settings (the home, the health center), and by
different observers (interviewers, family advocates, scores from videotapes) were related to
children’s scores on the language assessments.
Because the findings are based on correlational analyses, no conclusions can be drawn
about causal processes. However, one plausible interpretation of the findings is that differences
in the caregiving practices of teenage mothers do contribute in significant ways to individual
differences in the capabilities of their children. Several studies have demonstrated that there
are large within-in group differences in the caregiving practices of teenage mothers, and this
study provided additional support for this conclusion. For example, scores on the 45-item
HOME inventory ranged from 11 to 42 for this sample at the 12-month assessment. Moreover,
in our informal conversations with the family advocates, the caregiving practices of some of
their clients have been described in very positive terms while the caregiving practices of others
were judged to be inadequate, sometimes bordering on neglectful or abusive. Caregiving dif-
ferences of this magnitude could contribute to individual differences in the capabilities of the
children. Studies of monozygotic and dizygotic twins support the view that environmental
factors contribute to individual differences in the expressive and receptive language capabilities
of young children (Reznick, Corley, & Robinson, 1997).
However, as Rice (1989) has pointed out, it is difficult to determine the effect of caregiving

14. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 161
practices on language development, in part, because the child may play a significant role in
eliciting responses from the caregiver. In other words, when mothers interact with their chil-
dren, each member of the pair is influencing the behavior of the other. Moreover, the child is
an active learner of language who must process the language he or she hears in order to
comprehend the meaning of words and the rules for expressing those words in meaningful
ways. Therefore, children are producers of their own development to some extent and any
relation between caregiving and children’s language probably does not reflect an unidirectional
process (Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981). On the other hand, it would be difficult for us to
conclude that the lack of verbal stimulation in many homes resulted from the child’s behavior
(e.g., not eliciting involvement from the mother). The family advocates noted that many chil-
dren who received little language stimulation from their mothers were eager to have books
read to them by the family advocates, or to engage in dialogue with the advocates while playing
with their toys.
Although the caregiving practices of teenage mothers may be important for their children’s
development, they are not likely to be the only influences on language development. Past
research suggests that individual differences in children’s language abilities may be influenced
by genetic differences among children (Moore & Snyder, 1991; Plomin, 1990; Resnick et al.,
1997), and by other aspects of the environment. Many teenage mothers are still in school or
working at least part of the day, so the children are exposed to other caregivers, sometimes
many other caregivers, as child-care arrangements can be complex. The father of the baby, the
mothers’ current partner if not the father, and the teens’ mothers may spend significant amounts
of time with the child. Little information was available on the practices of other caregivers in
this study, and this is an area that should be examined in future studies. However, given the
complexity of their child-care arrangements, collecting data on the practices of all caregivers
is likely be a daunting task for those who study children of adolescent mothers.
In this article, we have focused on the possible influence of caregiving on children’s
language development. However, caregiving occurs in a broader context, and factors that in-
fluence caregiving may indirectly influence children’s development. The quality of care the
teen provides for her children is likely to be influenced not only by characteristics of the teens
and characteristics of their children, but also the context in which the relationship is evolving
(Belsky, 1984; Schellenbach, Whitman, & Borkowski, 1992). Teens who are providing rela-
tively low quality care in a stressful context may be able to provide more supportive care under
more favorable circumstances. In an earlier study with this sample, we found that the young
mothers tended to receive higher scores on the HOME inventory when they lived in safer
neighborhoods and when the fathers of the babies helped to care for the baby and provided
financial support for the mothers (Luster et al., 1996). Presumably these factors decrease the
mother’s level of stress and increase her capacity to focus on the needs of her child. Therefore,
in considering possible influences on language development, one should not lose sight of more
distal factors that may influence the experiences of the child and, ultimately, the child’s com-
petencies (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
By examining the relation between caregiving and children’s language abilities, this study
adds information to an area that has received insufficient attention by those who study adoles-
cent parenting. Researchers have noted for some time that teenage mothers tend to provide less
verbal stimulation for their children than older mothers. Other researchers have shown that the
children of teenage mothers tend to score lower than their peers on cognitive assessments,
especially when the assessments are language-based rather than focusing on sensorimotor skills.
Although it seems reasonable that the lack of verbal stimulation provided by some teenage
mothers may be related to the low language scores of their children, surprisingly few studies
have investigated this possibility (for a notable exception see Hann, Osofsky, & Culp, 1996).

15. 162 ● T. Luster and M. Vandenbelt
For this reason, we thought it was important to carefully examine the relation between parenting
by teenage mothers and the language abilities of their children when we began our longitudinal
study of the Family TIES program.
Although this study addresses an important issue in the teenage parenthood literature, the
data for this study have certain limitations that also should be noted. First, the sample size is
small and many of the teens who originally enrolled in the Family TIES program did not
participate in the 30-month assessment or other earlier assessments. Although we provided free
transportation for appointments and incentives for participation, we have found it challenging
to maintain a sample of low-teenage mothers in a longitudinal study. Participation in research
that involves repeated assessments is not likely to be a priority for most teenagers, let alone
teenage parents who have many demands on their time. The small sample size also precluded
us from conducting separate analyses for families from different ethnic groups. It would be
valuable to explore these relations in future studies.
A second limitation is that the sample does not include teenage mothers from more ad-
vantaged circumstances and therefore the results may not be generalizable to all adolescent
mothers; only young mothers from low-income families were eligible for this program. One
must keep this in mind when interpreting the results of the analyses, particularly the average
scores of the children on the measures. Moreover, a restricted range on some variables may
have attenuated the correlations in some analyses. For example, with a more diverse sample,
we may have found a stronger relation between our indicator of SES (the teens’ parents’ level
of education) and the language outcomes. Several studies have shown that SES is related to
the language experiences of children in the home (see Hoff-Ginsberg & Tardiff, 1995 for a
review). On the positive side, limiting the study to low-income teens reduces the likelihood
that caregiving and income are confounded in this study.
A third limitation is that advocates’ ratings of caregiving were not available for the teens
who were in the Standard Program Group. The family advocate for teens in the Standard
Program (the less intensive treatment group) worked with the teens primarily via phone and
mail from her office in the health center and therefore knew less about the caregiving practices
of the teens than the advocates who made weekly home visits had. The small sample size,
inconsistent participation in the research assessments, and the fact that data were available on
only half the sample for certain variables also limited the kinds of analyses that could be
conducted with this data set. For example, it would have been valuable to conduct a multiple
regression analysis to determine if caregiving measures assessed at 6 and 12 months were
predictive of language scores when measures of caregiving at 24 months were controlled.
Some may also question our decision to include ratings of caregiving by paraprofessional
family advocates in the analyses. However, over the course of the project we have come to
view the family advocates as knowledgeable and insightful sources of information. We believe
that their ratings based on weekly home visits over a 2-year period are likely to be as valid as
other assessments of parenting typically used in research that are based on an hour or two of
observations by someone who is stranger to the family. The fact that their ratings (even those
made when the children were only 6 months olds) were predictive of the children’s language
capabilities and were related to other indicators of caregiving supports the view that the ad-
vocates provided valuable information about their clients.
Despite the limitations of this study, the data do provide a clear answer to the primary
question of interest. The caregiving practices of low-income teenage mothers are predictive of
the language abilities of their children at 30 months. Based on the results of this study, we
would encourage additional research in this area, especially with adolescent mothers from
different ethnic and income groups.
Finally, as we noted earlier, the children in the two treatment groups did not differ, on

16. Caregiving by Low-Income Adolescent Mothers ● 163
average, on the language assessments. These results were disappointing and have caused us to
rethink our approach to the intervention. If we were starting over, we would consider making
at least two significant changes. First, we would expand the component of the home-visiting
program that focused directly on caregiving. Our intervention focused primarily on providing
social support for the young mothers and linking them to needed services in the community.
Some interventions that focused more on mother – infant interaction, such as the Missouri New
Parents As Teachers program, have had success in enhancing children’s language capabilities
(White, 1988). Second, we realize now that some of the young mothers in the program, because
of their problematic developmental histories and current circumstances, needed services (e.g.,
mental health services) that go beyond the expertise of paraprofessional family advocates. The
significant needs of the adolescents from multiproblem families have led us to believe that our
more intensive level of service was not intensive enough for some of families being served by
the program, and that additional services from mental health professionals and others must be
provided in some cases.
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