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Running Head: HOME ASSESSMENT

HOME Assessment

Gabriela Posadas

Brigham Young University-Idaho

CHILD300: Infant and Toddler Development

Bro. Rowe
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HOME ASSESSMENT

The HOME assessment is a systematic assessment given in an environment in which

the child lives. The purpose of the assessment is to measure the support and stimulation

available to a child in his or her home environment. For this HOME Assessment, child

specialist can measure the support and stimulation offered to the child, using a rating scale.

The rating scare consists of different constructs including responsivity, acceptance,

organization, learning materials, involvement and variety. This data can help practitioners,

researchers and child specialist identify what the most effective intervention could be to

better aid the child’s overall development. The assessment is performed by observing and

interviewing the child’s primary care giver.

The HOME assessment is used to benefit the development of a child by providing

criteria that helps the investigators see what specific things they are looking for that are

beneficial to the child. These guidelines are practices that are important for the developing

child that create an optimum learning experience in the home. Effectiveness on certain

interventions are also measured using the scores on the HOME assessment. Some of these

interventions offered based on the HOME assessments consisted of emotional, informational

and appraisal support to first time parents of pre-term babies. The intervention was

administered in homes and hospitals of these parents and were offered by other parents who

previously had experience caring for premature babies. “It was found that mother who

participated in the intervention, when compared to a comparison group had higher scores on

the HOME total score, the Responsivity and the Organization subscale at 12 months

postpartum.” (Totsika & Sylva, 2004). This study supports the idea that preterm babies

benefit a great deal when their parents received support from experienced parents.
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The HOME assessment was done on Jace, a 5-month-old baby boy who is the first child

of his mother, Melissa and her husband. He lives with his parents in an apartment. As the

environment was observed from the side the visitor, you can see that there are a variety of

books set up on a large wooden bookcase. The visitor is sitting on a large brown couch and

there seems to be a beige rocking chair as well. On Melissa’s side of her apartment, you can

another matching brown couch and some decorative plants. It is difficult to make inferences

about the internal mental state of Melissa. She didn’t openly express feelings of anxiousness,

nervousness or excitement but her body posture was relaxed as she comfortably sat on the

couch leaning all the way back. She spoke with a clear, enthusiastic and assertive tone of

voice. The assessment took an overall of 16 minutes and 48 seconds.

Responsivity

Melissa showed positive and optimistic responses towards Jace during the entire visit.

She always responded verbally whenever Jace squealed and babbled, and the entire time she

held him on her lap and occasionally fed him his bottle. To avoid Jace from getting bored,

she would bounce him on her lap. For one of the interview questions, Melissa openly spoke

about how fun it was to watch Jace splash water in the tub during bath time despite the

water mess it made all over the walls and bathroom floor. Overall her responsivity was a

strength in the HOME assessment. Melissa scored a 9 for the responsivity construct which is

also the median score for the larger population. This information tells us that Melissa is

average in her responsiveness towards Jace. Although Melissa showed responsiveness

towards Jace’s babbling and squeals, using words like “Yeah and “Huh?” she scored a

minus on areas that provided opportunities for further verbal communication like
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spontaneously vocalizing to child at least twice or telling Jace the name of the objects he

was holding. Research shows that parent–child verbal communication during this time plays

an important part in structuring children’s attachment behavior and knowledge (Posada &

Water, 2018). According to this research I would recommend that Melissa vocalizes to Jace,

more often.

Acceptance

Melissa scored positively on all areas of acceptance except the one that talks about the

family having a house pet. Melissa also expressed how she did not discipline Jace due to how

young he was and that if he were to ever get into a plant when he was older she would simply

explain to him why it is not okay. From Melissa’s response we know that she does not

currently discipline or plan of disciplining Jace through physical punishment. In this

construct Melissa scores at 7 which is one point higher than the median score of the larger

population. Her score indicates that she is doing better than the average population in

acceptance. Although having a pet may seem like a minimal area of the assessment, there are

cross sectional and longitudinal analyses whose findings support the positive benefits of

having a house pet, especially as a baby ages and becomes a child. The results showed that

pets may protect children in general from developing peer relationship problems, emotional

symptoms, and deficits in prosocial behaviors (Christian et al., 2020). As Jace gets older he

will be better equipped emotionally and socially to confront the new transitions in his life.

Organization
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Jace scored a 5 on organization and based on the interview questions on this construct we

learn that Jace has several stimulating experiences outside of the home. These experiences

involve daily walks in the park with his mom, and visits at the grocery store or gym. Jace

even gets the opportunity to socialize with other infants and children from the children in the

ward. Although we learned from the interview that Jace enjoys playing with his stuffed

animal toys and books, information on a specific special place for his toys is unknown. Aside

from this missing information we can conclude that organization is an area of strength.

Although it wasn’t explicitly talked about, we can infer from Melissa’s comments that they

value Jace’s play time along with his toys in helping him develop, therefore it would be

highly recommended that Melissa designate a space or special area in their home for Jace’s

toys. Once again, we learn from research that play is essential to optimal child development

because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children

and youth. It also offers an ideal and significant opportunity for parents and other caregivers

to engage fully with children using toys as an instrument of play and interaction (Healey &

Meldensohn, 2019). As Melissa finds greater excitement about Jace’s toys by designating a

special place for them, their interaction will increase.

Learning materials.

As far as Jace’s toys are concerned, we are aware that he owns a few toys including,

muscle, cuddly, eye-hand coordination, and literature toys. We also know that Melissa takes

Jace to the park every day while Jace rides in his stroller and Melissa pushes him. Even

during the visit, she made sure that Jace had his stuffed monkey. Jace held on tight to his

little cuddly monkey who had rings for fine motor development along with a teething section.
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Although there were toys that were provided for Jace to play with, it seemed that they

consisted of mostly stuffed animals which are not very stimulating. I think Jace’s learning

materials were an average for the overall HOME score. Jace scored a 7 in learning materials

which is a median score in reference to the larger population. There are many developmental

benefits to play that last into adulthood. Among the many different learning concepts

children learn through play, there are specific ones that are learned to push and pull toys

including hand skills, problem solving, cause and effect, and of course motor skills that

include mobility, crawling and pulling to stand (Blenkinsop, 2009). According to this

information, it is recommended that Jace obtain some push or pull toys to improve not only

his fine motor development but also improve his execute function which is a critical for

Jace’s overall development into healthy adulthood.

Involvement

According to Melissa’s responses Jace’s involvement construct was a weakness.

Although Melissa, says she does household chores when Jace is sleeping most of the time,

she does clean around the house with him strapped around her and she does speak to Jace

because he seems happier when he does. Melissa also mentioned that she has toys that Jace is

just beginning to learn to play with, like the play pens infants use to lay down reach above

their head for hanging objects. This activity shows Melissa and her husband’s investment in

buying maturing toys for Jace. She also mentioned that whenever her and her husband decide

on what toys to buy Jace they consider different factors like if the toy will teach him anything

or if it is age appropriate. Unfortunately, there weren’t any incentives for periods for

structured play during the day. It seemed like most of the structured activities had more to do
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with eating and sleeping. Melissa also mentioned how she would just place Jace in the

bouncer and he’d entertain himself. She also mentioned that her and her husband were

teaching Jace things like learning to sit up on his own by simply making him practice. She

also said that her and her husband were also teaching him his name by having her husband

say his name and wait for Jace to turn around. The median score to this construct is 4 and

Jace scored a 3. In comparison to the larger population Jace didn’t do very well. It is

important that Jace has toys that challenge his thinking and help him develop new skills. In

this research article we learn that toys inspire, maintain, and enrich play and influence the

duration and complexity of play activities and inspire social interaction (Trawick, 2015). I

would recommend that Melissa, introduce toys that will be challenging to Jace while she is

there to guide his play and offer his a more enriching experience.

Variety

Jace’s father is very involved in his rearing. He is very helpful with Melissa and not only

does he join Jace and Melissa for dinner, but he also joins Melissa in story telling with Jace.

They both read to Jace three to four times a week and have many different choice books for

Jace to be read to. Although Melissa says that her and her husband Facetime with their

family at least once a week, there isn’t any interaction Jace has with his extended family

besides watching them on a screen, they had to score negative on this item. Jace scored a 4

out of a possible, with an overall average of 4 for the total population. Given the fact that

Jace scored above an average score proves that this are of construct is a strength. Despite

Jace’s positive interactive moments he spends with his parents, he is not having those rich

personal face-to-face interactions with his extended family, which can be problematic as Jace
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gets older. It was found that attachment anxiety was significantly related with the ratio of

technology mediated communication while attachment avoidance was not, and also the ratio

of technology mediated communication was also a mediator between attachment anxiety and

relationship quality (Goodcase et al., 2018). In order to prevent Jace to develop anxiety from

his family members and in turn develop healthy attachments towards them, it is important

that he interacts with them through personal face-to-face communication. If Melissa and her

husband want to help Jace have an even better-quality relationship with his grandparents and

aunts and uncles, it would be ideal for Jace to have real experiences with his extended

family.
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Reference Page

Christian, H., Mitrou, F., Cunneen, R., & Zubrick, S. R. (2020). Pets Are Associated with

Fewer Peer Problems and Emotional Symptoms, and Better Prosocial Behavior:

Findings from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. The Journal of

Pediatrics, 220, 200–206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.01.012

Goodcase, E. T., Nalbone, D. P., Hecker, L. L., & Latty, C. (2018). The Role of Attachment

Anxiety and Avoidance in Communication Modality and Relationship Quality of

Romantic Relationships Initiated Online. American Journal of Family Therapy, 46(2),

168–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/01926187.2018.1461032

Healey, A., Mendelsohn, A., & COUNCIL ON EARLY CHILDHOOD. (2019). Selecting

Appropriate Toys for Young Children in the Digital Era. Official Journal of the

American Academy of Pediatrics, 143(1), 1-12. DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-3348

Moyse, K. (2009). Promoting health in children and young people: The role of the nurse.

Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Posada, G. E., & Waters, H. S. (2018). Viii. Conclusion: Co‐Constructing a Secure Base

Partnership: Mother–Child Interactions, Communication, and Script

Representations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child

Development, 83(4), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.1111/mono.12395

Trawick-Smith, J., Wolff, J., Koschel, M., & Vallarelli, J. (2015). Effects of Toys on the Play

Quality of Preschool Children: Influence of Gender, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic

Status. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43(4), 249–256.