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Shifting parental beliefs about child development to foster parental investments and improve school readiness outcomes.

ABSTRACT: Socioeconomic gaps in child development open up early, with associated disparities in parental investments in children. Understanding the drivers of these disparities is key to designing effective policies. We first show that parental beliefs about the impact of early parental investments differ across socioeconomic status (SES), with parents of higher SES being more likely to believe that parental investments impact child development. We then use two randomized controlled trials to explore the mutability of such beliefs and their link to parental investments and child development, our three primary outcomes. In the first trial (NCT02812017 on clinicaltrials.gov), parents in the treatment group were asked to watch a short educational video during four well-child visits with their pediatrician while in the second trial (NCT03076268), parents in the treatment group received twelve home visits with feedback based on their daily interactions with their child. In both cases, we find that parental beliefs about child development are malleable. The first program changes parental beliefs but fails to lastingly increase parental investments and child outcomes. By contrast, in the more intensive program, all pre-specified endpoints are improved: the augmented beliefs are associated with enriched parent-child interactions and higher vocabulary, math, and social-emotional skills for the children.

SUBMITTER: List JA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8486787 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:INTRODUCTION:The first years of school are critical in establishing a foundation for positive long-term academic, social and well-being outcomes. Mindfulness-based interventions may help students transition well into school, but few robust studies have been conducted in this age group. We aim to determine whether compared with controls, children who receive a mindfulness intervention within the first years of primary school have better: (1) immediate attention/short-term memory at 18 months post-randomisation (primary outcome); (2) inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility at 18 months post-randomisation; (3) socio-emotional well-being, emotion-regulation and mental health-related behaviours at 6 and 18 months post-randomisation; (4) sustained changes in teacher practice and classroom interactions at 18 months post-randomisation. Furthermore, we aim to determine whether the implementation predicts the efficacy of the intervention, and the cost effectiveness relative to outcomes. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:This cluster randomised controlled trial will be conducted in 22 primary schools in disadvantaged areas of Melbourne, Australia. 826 students in the first year of primary school will be recruited to detect between groups differences of Cohen's d=0.25 at the 18-month follow-up. Parent, teacher and child-assessment measures of child attention, emotion-regulation, executive functioning, socio-emotional well-being, mental health-related behaviour and learning, parent mental well-being, teacher well-being will be collected 6 and 18 months post-randomisation. Implementation factors will be measured throughout the study. Intention-to-treat analyses, accounting for clustering within schools and classes, will adopt a two-level random effects linear regression model to examine outcomes for the intervention versus control students. Unadjusted and analyses adjusted for baseline scores, baseline age, gender and family socioeconomic status will be conducted. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:Ethics approval has been received by the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Melbourne. Findings will be reported in peer-review publications, national and international conference presentations and research snapshots directly provided to participating schools and families. PRE-RESULTS TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12619000326190).

Project description:A promising approach for studying school readiness involves a person-centered approach, aimed at exploring how functioning in diverse developmental domains conjointly affects children's school outcomes. Currently, however, a systematic understanding lacks of how motor skills, in conjunction with other school readiness skills, affect a child's school outcomes. Additionally, little is known about longitudinal associations of school readiness with non-academic (e.g., socioemotional) school outcomes. Therefore, we examined the school readiness skills of a sample of Dutch children (N = 91) with a mean age of 3 years and 4 months (46% girls). We used a multi-informant test battery to assess children's school readiness in terms of executive functions (EFs), language and emergent literacy, motor skills, and socioemotional behavior. During the spring term of a child's first grade year, we collected academic and non-academic (i.e., EFs, motor skills, socioemotional- and classroom behavior, and creative thinking) school outcomes. A latent profile analysis revealed four distinct profiles. Children in the "Parent Positive" (29%) profile were rated positively by their parents, and performed variably on motor and language/emergent literacy skills tests. The second profile-"Multiple Strengths" (13%)-consisted of children showing strengths in multiple domains, especially with respect to motor skills. Children from the third profile-"Average Performers" (50%)-did not show any distinct strengths or weaknesses, rather displayed school readiness skill levels close to, or just below the sample mean. Finally, the "Parental Concern" (8%) profile was characterized by high levels of parental concerns, while displaying slightly above average performance on specific motor and language skills. Motor skills clearly distinguished between profiles, next to parent-rated EFs and socioemotional behavior, and to a lesser extent emergent literacy skills. School readiness profiles were found to differ in mean scores on first grade academic achievement, parent- and teacher-rated EFs, motor skills, parent-rated socioemotional functioning, and pre-requisite learning skills. The pattern of mean differences was complex, suggesting that profiles could not be ranked from low to high in terms of school outcomes. Longitudinal studies are needed to disentangle the interaction between emerging school readiness of the child and the surrounding context.

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Shifting parental beliefs about child development to foster parental investments and improve school readiness outcomes.

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