The StimQ2 is a reliable and valid parent-report measure of the cognitive home environment. It is a survey instrument available for use with parents and other primary caregivers of children between 5 months and 6 years. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to administer and 2 to 3 minutes to score, and is available in multiple languages. It is designed for interviewer based administration; however a self report adaptation is available. It is available for free download on this website.

Background

What is the "cognitive home environment"?
The cognitive home environment is a term that describes children’s exposure to cognitively stimulating experiences and activities in the home. This includes availability of learning materials to support play and reading, parental support for learning new skills, overall parental verbal responsivity, and engagement in shared book reading.

Why is the cognitive home environment important?
Considerable evidence demonstrates the importance of the cognitive home environment (e.g., reading, talking, and play) in supporting children’s language, cognition, and school readiness more broadly. Cognitive stimulation also represents a key marker of early relational health (ERH), which involves responsive parenting and support for early learning.

How does the StimQ2 measure this?
The StimQ2 measures cognitive stimulation through a brief parent-report measure that can be administered in a variety of settings, at a low cost. The StimQ2 was also designed to minimize social desirability bias and measures multiple aspects of cognitive stimulation in the home.

About the StimQ2

The current version of the StimQ2 was developed in 2016 and validated in 2023.

​The following are links for downloading the 3 forms of the instrument and the manual for the survey as originally designed for interviewer administration of the StimQ2:

• infants ages 5 to 12 months: English version, Spanish version
• toddlers ages 12 to 36 months: English version, Spanish version
• preschoolers ages 36 to 72 months: English version, Spanish version

If you would like to use the StimQ2, we ask that you please fill out a request using the following link so that we can track how it is being used in research. Additionally, please contact us if you are interested in using self report adaptations.

You can find the manual at the following link: StimQ2 Manual
 
The StimQ2 has four subscales:

• Reading (READ)
• Parental Involvement in Developmental Advance (PIDA)
• Parental Verbal Responsivity (PVR)
• Availability of Learning Materials (ALM)

Cates C. B*., Roby E*., Canfield C. F., Johnson M, Raak C., Weisleder A., Dreyer, B. P., & Mendelsohn, A. L. (2023) Validation of the StimQ2: A parent-report measure of cognitive stimulation in the home. PLoS ONE 18(7): e0286708.
​ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286708. 
*Denotes shared first author

Citation for use of the StimQ instrument:
Cates, C.B., Weisleder, A., Roby, E., Canfield, C.F., Raak, C., Johnson, M., Dreyer, B., & Mendelsohn A.L. (2023). StimQ2 Instructions for Administration.​

Development, history, and validation: 

The StimQ was developed by pediatricians and developmental psychologists at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and was validated in a study by Dreyer and colleagues (1996).

The StimQ2 was developed in 2016 and improves upon earlier versions by removing outdated items, assessing additional domains of cognitive stimulation, and providing new scoring systems. 

The 2023 validation of the StimQ2 showed the instrument to be a reliable and valid parent-report measure of the cognitive home environment. The StimQ2 showed strong concurrent validity with standardized measures of important domains of child development including social, language, and cognitive abilities from infancy through the preschool years. In addition, the measure was shown to be reliable when considering the total score or reporting smaller subscales (e.g., READ, PIDA, PVR, ALM) that assess specific aspects of the home environment.

Fore more information please contact: [email protected]. 

Languages

StimQ2 is fully validated in English, Spanish, and Italian.

English & Spanish validation: Cates, C. B.*., Roby, E.*, Canfield, C. F., Raak, C., Johnson, M., Dreyer, B., & Mendelsohn, A. L. (in press). Parental report of the cognitive home environment: Validation of the StimQ2. PLOS ONE. *Denotes shared first author.
 
Italian validation: De Salve, R., Romanelli, S., Frontani, F., Policastro, F., Berardi, A., Valente, D., & Galeoto, G. (2023). Translation and Cultural Adaptation of the StimQ for Use with Italian Children from Kindergartens. Children, 10, 109.

It has also been translated to and used in a number of other languages by other researchers, including Chinese, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Thai, and Turkish. ​If your use of the StimQ2 requires translation to a language other than English or Spanish, please review our translation guide (click here) and make a translation request: https://redcap.link/hg8gzxa

Usage

StimQ2 has been used by researchers all over the world, and findings from its use have been reported in over nearly 100 publications. Some notable ones are:
​​​

• Hutton, J. S., Dudley, J., Horowitz-Kraus, T., DeWitt, T., & Holland, S. K. (2020). Associations between screen-based media use and brain white matter integrity in preschool-aged children. JAMA pediatrics, 174(1), e193869-e193869.
•  Luo, R., et al. (2020). "Children's Literacy Experiences in Low-Income Families: The Content of Books Matters." Reading Research Quarterly 55(2): 213-233.
•  Roby, E., Miller, E. B., Shaw, D. S., Morris, P., Gill, A., Bogen, D. L., ... & Mendelsohn, A. L. (2021). Improving parent-child interactions in pediatric health care: A two-site randomized controlled trial. Pediatrics, 147(3).
•  Zheng, S., LeWinn, K., Ceja, T., Hanna-Attisha, M., O'Connell, L., & Bishop, S. (2021). Adaptive behavior as an alternative outcome to intelligence quotient in studies of children at risk: a study of preschool-aged children in Flint, MI, USA. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 692330.
• Bennetts, S. K., Mensah, F. K., Westrupp, E. M., Hackworth, N. J., & Reilly, S. (2016). The agreement between parent-reported and directly measured child language and parenting behaviors. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1710.
• Canaloglu, S. K., Dogan, D. G., Buyukavci, M. A., & Arslan, F. N. (2021). Cognitive home environment of infants, toddlers and preschoolers: A study from a hospital setting.
• Malhi, P., Menon, J., Bharti, B., & Sidhu, M. (2018). Cognitive development of toddlers: Does parental stimulation matter?. The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 85, 498-503.
• Papadimitriou, A., Smyth, C., Politimou, N., Franco, F., & Stewart, L. (2021). The impact of the home musical environment on infants’ language development. Infant Behavior and Development, 65, 101651.

Contact and Requests

We are currently working on several adaptations of the StimQ2 including a version for parent self-report and an early elementary school version. If you would like to be part of beta testing for these adaptations, or if you would like more information about the original StimQ please contact us at: [email protected].