This study investigates the psychometric properties of the Adoption Communication Openness (ACO) Scale. Following a multi-informant approach, the study considered four versions of the ACO Scale to assess the child’s perception of adoption communication openness with both mother and father and the mother’s and father’s perceptions of communication with the child. The validation sample included 331 Italian families, with an internationally adopted child (12–18 years). The factorial structure of the ACO Scale was evaluated through confirmatory factor analyses, leading to a mono-factorial structure with good reliability for all four versions of the scale. Evidence of full cross-relational invariance and partial cross-informant invariance was obtained, as well as convergent and criterion validity. Results confirmed the psychometric properties of the multi-informant ACO Scale in the Italian context and indicated it as a particularly suitable measure to investigate family members’ perceptions of their levels of communication openness regarding adoption.
AndersonK. N.RueterM. A.LeeR. M. (2015). Discussions about racial and ethnic differences in internationally adoptive families: Links with family engagement, warmth, & control. Journal of Family Communication, 15(4), 289–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2015.1076420
2.
Aramburu AlegretI.Pérez-TestorC.Mercadal RotgerJ.Salamero BaróM.Davins PujolsM.Mirabent JunyentV.Aznar MartínezB.BrodzinskyD. (2020). Influence of communicative openness on the psychological adjustment of internationally adopted adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 30(Suppl. 1), 226–237. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12464
3.
Aramburu AlegretI.SalameroM.AznarB.Pérez-TestorC.DavinsM.MirabentV.BrodzinskyD. (2015). Preliminary validation of a Spanish language version of the Adoption Communication Scale in adopted adolescents/Validación preliminar de una dolesc en español de la escala Adoption Communication Scale para adolescentes adoptados. Estudios de Psicologia, 36(3), 626–642. https://doi.org/10.1080/02109395.2015.1078551
4.
BadenA. L.ShadelD.MorganR.WhiteE. E.HarringtonE. S.ChristianN.BatesT. A. (2019). Delaying adoption disclosure: A survey of late discovery adoptees. Journal of Family Issues, 40(9), 1154–1180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X19829503
5.
BarnesG. M.FarrellM. P. (1992). Parental support and control as predictors of adolescent drinking, delinquency, and related problem behaviors. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 763–776. https://doi.org/10.2307/353159
6.
BarnesH. L.OlsonD. H. (1985). Parent–adolescent communication and the circumplex model. Child Development, 56(2), 438–447. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129732
7.
BarniD.AlfieriS.MartaE.RosnatiR. (2013). Overall and unique similarities between parents’ values and adolescent or emerging adult children’s values. Journal of Adolescence, 36(6), 1135–1141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2013.09.002
8.
BornsteinM. H.SuwalskyJ. T. (2021). The specificity principle in adoption. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 74, 101264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101264
9.
BrodzinskyD. (2006). Family structural openness and communication openness as predictors in the adjustment of adopted children. Adoption Quarterly, 9(4), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1300/J145v09n04_01
10.
BrodzinskyD.GunnarM.PalaciosJ. (2022). Adoption and trauma: Risks, recovery, and the lived experience of adoption. Child Abuse & Neglect, 130, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105309
ClaxtonS. E.DelucaH. K.Van DulmenM. H. (2015). Testing psychometric properties in dyadic data using confirmatory factor analysis: Current practices and recommendations. Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 22(2), 181–198. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM22.2.2
13.
ColanerC. W.SolizJ. (2017). A communication-based approach to adoptive identity: Theoretical and empirical support. Communication Research, 44(5), 611–637. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650215577860
14.
FernandesM.VeríssimoM.SantosA. J.RibeiroO.VaughnB. E.GastelleM.KernsK. A. (2021). Measurement invariance across mother/child and father/child attachment relationships. Attachment & Human Development, 23(1), 56–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2019.1710222
15.
FerrariL.RanieriS.BarniD.RosnatiR. (2015). Parent–child relationship and adoptees’ psychological well-being in adolescence and emerging adulthood: Disentangling maternal and paternal contribution. Family Science, 6(1), 77–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/19424620.2015.1081005
16.
GoodmanR. (1999). The extended version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as a guide to child psychiatric caseness and consequent burden. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40(5), 791–799. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-7610.00494
17.
GrotevantH. D.RueterM.Von KorffL.GonzalezC. (2011). Post-adoption contact, adoption communicative openness, and satisfaction with contact as predictors of externalizing behavior in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(2), 529–536. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02330.x
HawkinsA.BeckettC.CastleJ.GroothuesC.Sonuga-BarkeE.ColvertE.. . .RutterM. (2007). The experience of adoption (1) A study of intercountry and domestic adoption from the child’s point of view. Adoption & Fostering, 31(4), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/030857590703100403
20.
JonesC.HackettS. (2007). Communicative openness within adoptive families: Adoptive parents’ narrative accounts of the challenges of adoption talk and the approaches used to manage these challenges. Adoption Quarterly, 10(3–4), 157–178.
21.
KerrM.StattinH. (2000). What parents know, how they know it, and several forms of adolescent adjustment: Further support for a reinterpretation of monitoring. Developmental Psychology, 36, 366–380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.36.3.366
22.
LanzM.IafrateR.RosnatiR.ScabiniE. (1999). Parent-child communication and adolescent self-esteem in separated, intercountry adoptive and intact non-adoptive families. Journal of Adolescence, 22(6), 785–794. https://doi.org/10.1006/jado.1999.0272
23.
LittleT. D. (2013). The Oxford handbook of quantitative methods. Oxford University Press.
24.
MarshH. W.HauK. T.WenZ. (2004). In search of golden rules: Comment on hypothesis-testing approaches to setting cutoff values for fit indexes and dangers in overgeneralizing Hu and Bentler’s (1999) findings. Structural Equation Modeling, 11(3), 320–341. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15328007sem1103_2
25.
McCauley OhannessianC.LernerJ. V.LernerR. M.von EyeA. (2000). Adolescent-parent discrepancies in perceptions of family functioning and early adolescent self-competence. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 24(3), 362–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650250050118358
26.
MohantyJ.AhnJ.ChokkanathanS. (2017). Adoption disclosure: Experiences of Indian domestic adoptive parents. Child & Family Social Work, 22, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12175
27.
MuthénB.KaplanD. (1985). A comparison of some methodologies for the factor analysis of non-normal Likert variables. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 38(2), 171–189. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8317.1985.tb00832.x
28.
OliverJ.BerásteguiA. (2023). Differentiation of self in adult adoptees in Spain: The role of family functioning, adoption communication, and age at placement. Adoption Quarterly, 26, 433–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926755.2023.2198516
29.
OlsonD. H.PortnerJ.LaveeY. (1985). Family adaptability and Cohesion evaluation scales (Faces III). University of Minnesota, Family Social Science.
30.
PalaciosJ.Sánchez-SandovalY. (2005). Beyond adopted/nonadopted comparisons. In BrodzinskyD. M.PalaciosJ. (Eds.), Psychological issues in adoption: Research and practice (pp. 117–144). Praeger Publishers/Greenwood Publishing Group
31.
PinderhughesE. E.BrodzinskyD. M. (2019). Parenting in adoptive families. In BornsteinM. H. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Children and parenting (pp. 322–367). Routledge.
32.
RanieriS.FerrariL.DanioniF. V.CanziE.BarniP.RosnatiR.RodriguezM. R. (2021). Adoptees facing adolescence: What accounts for their psychological well-being?Journal of Adolescence, 89, 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.03.005
33.
RanieriS.FerrariL.RosnatiR.Vittoria DanioniF.CanziE.MillerL. (2022). The mediating role of adoption communication openness between family functioning and the adjustment of adopted adolescents: A multi-informant approach. Journal of Family Communication, 22(3), 193–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/15267431.2022.2095388
34.
RosnatiR.IafrateR.ScabiniE. (2007). Parent–adolescent communication in foster, inter-country adoptive, and biological Italian families: Gender and generational differences. International Journal of Psychology, 42(1), 36–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590500412128
35.
SantonaA.TognassoG.MisciosciaC. L.RussoD.GorlaL. (2022). Talking about the birth family since the beginning: The communicative openness in the new adoptive family. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(3), 1203. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031203
36.
ScabiniE.MartaE.LanzM. (2006). The transition to adulthood and family relations: An intergenerational approach. Psychology Press.
37.
TabachnickB. G.FidellL. S. (2013). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Pearson.
38.
TagliabueS.DonatoS. (2015). Missing data in family research: Examining different levels of missingness. TPM: Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 22(2), 199–217. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM22.2.3
39.
TagliabueS.LanzM. (2014). Exploring social and personal relationships: The issue of measurement invariance of non-independent observations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 44(7), 683–690. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2047
40.
TagliabueS.ZambelliM.SorgenteA.SommerS.HoellgerC.BuhlH. M.LanzM. (2021). Latent Congruence Model to investigate similarity and accuracy in family members’ perception: The challenge of cross-national and cross-informant measurement (non) invariance. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 672383. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.672383
41.
TobiaV.MarzocchiG. M. (2018). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire-parents for Italian school-aged children: Psychometric properties and norms. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 49(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-017-0723-2
42.
WrobelG. M.KohlerJ. K.GrotevantH. D.McRoyR. G. (2003). The family adoption communication (FAC) model: Identifying pathways of adoption related communication. Adoption Quarterly, 7(2), 53–84. https://doi.org/10.1300/J145v07n02_04
43.
YingL.MaF.HuangH.GuoX.ChenC.XuF. (2015). Parental monitoring, parent–adolescent communication, and adolescents’ trust in their parents in China. PLOS ONE, 10(8), Article e0134730. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134730
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
