Benefits of Early Parenting Support: New Findings

A new study published in Child Development found that indirect pathways through parental support of cognitive stimulation were statistically significant. That is, PlayReadVIP (combined with home visiting through Family Check-Up [the 'Smart Beginnings' model]) increased preschool children’s language and literacy entirely via increases in cognitively stimulating parent-child interactions. These findings provide additional support for the theory of change of the SB model, which posits that the SB program would positively impact parental support of cognitive stimulation and subsequent improvements in children’s language and literacy. Importantly, these findings also extend previous work by linking increases in positive parenting practices to improvements in children’s school readiness. 

The results of this study indicate the importance of parenting practices as proximal processes for children’s development, and provide strong support for the potential of the SB model to impact children’s language, literacy, and other school readiness outcomes through increases in responsive parenting practices. Gold standard assessments were used to directly assess children, such as the Woodcock Johnson  IV Tests of Achievement Letter-Word Identification test. The present results also build on and complement prior literature examining the specific and important role that early parental language and literacy activities, including reading and teaching, play in the development of children’s early word reading and vocabulary, and particularly for racial/ethnic minority children with low incomes and those who are dual language learners. The current findings also suggest that a tiered parenting intervention focused on support of positive parenting can be particularly effective in enhancing parental support of cognitive stimulation and, subsequently, child cognitive outcomes. This study has implications for the development of parenting interventions that seek to reduce poverty-related disparities in children’s school readiness abilities and shed light on the mechanisms through which such interventions impact development. ​

Miller, E. B., Canfield, C. F., Roby, E., Wippick, H., Shaw, D. S., Mendelsohn, A. L., & Morris-Perez, P. A. (2023). Enhancing early language and literacy skills for racial/ethnic minority children with low incomes through a randomized clinical trial: The mediating role of cognitively stimulating parent–child interactions. Child Development, 00, 1–14.