Relative importance of home environment domains to behavior problems in preschool children with developmental disabilities: A cross-sectional study using relative weights analysis

Abstract

Background: Developmental disabilities (DD) encompass a wide range of medical conditions and disorders that affect a child’s physical, learning, or behavior functioning. The home environment is closely associated with child behavior problems; however, which aspect of the home environment is most important to specific domains of behavior problems remains under-investigated.
Objective:This study aimed to examine and compare the association between different domains of the home environment and behavior problems of preschool children with DD.
Study design:Cross-sectional study design.Methods:Data were collected from 191 parents of children diagnosed with DD from four specialized rehabilitation institutions in two cities (Jinan and Hangzhou) between August 2021 and August 2022. The home environment was assessed using the 3-6 Years Child Home Nurture Environment Scale. Behavior problems were measured using the Aberrant Behavior Checklist. Linear regression analyses were performed to assess the associations between total and domain scores of the home environment and those of behavior problems. Relative weights analyses were further used to determine the relative contribution of each home environment domain to the explained variance in total and domain-specific behavior problems.
Results:Linear regression model analysis showed that a better home environment was associated with lower irritability, lethargy/social withdrawal, stereotypic behavior, hyperactivity, inappropriate speech, and overall behavior problems (B values range from −0.109 to −0.346, all P < 0.05). Relative weights analyses revealed that the association between the home environment and behavior problems was domain-specific among preschoolers with DD. More specifically, the neglect/interference/punishment domain of the home environment made the largest contribution to the explained variance in relation to behavior problems compared to other domains (28.78 %).
Conclusions:The findings highlight the domain-specific associations between the home environment and behavior problems of preschool children with DD and suggest the need for targeted interventions within the home setting to effectively manage behavior issues in this vulnerable population.

Keywords

Developmental disabilities / Home environment / Behavior problems / Relative weights analyses / Children

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Pingping Lyu: Writing -original draft, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Xunqi Zhang: Writing -original draft; Writing -review & editing, Conceptualization. Naixue Cui: Writing -review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization. Jing Han: Writing -review & editing, Formal analysis. Fanghong Dong: Writing -review & editing. All the authors have read and approved the final version of this manuscript.

Ethics approval

The study was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013 and obtained approval from the Ethics Committee of the School of Nursing and Rehabilitation of Shandong University (Ref No. 2021-R-103). Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Funding information

National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 32100877].

Data availability

Data and code will be made available on reasonable request.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Acknowledgments

We express our gratitude to all the participants who participated in this study.

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.hcr.2025.100033.

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