3-068 - Two-generation intervention approaches for families living in poverty: Insights from neuroscience, psychology, and intervention

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In this panel, we examine two-generation intervention approaches for families living in poverty. These approaches target both parent needs, including support for education, job training and parent mental health as well as child needs, including parenting interventions and early childhood education. This symposium supports SRCD’s commitment to diversity by including Spanish-speaking and ethnically diverse families, and to interdisciplinary by including neuroscience, psychology, and intervention science.

In Study 1, Kim et al. demonstrate how parenting styles may be transmitted to the next generation through a neurobiological mechanism in an at-risk sample. A relationship between childhood exposure to poverty (birth to 17) and reduced neural responses to infant cry sounds was found for females. This relationship was mediated by higher levels of cortisol.

In Study 2, Pakulak et al. demonstrate how childhood SES influences changes in the brain involved in cognitive processes in childhood and adulthood. Using ERP, lower childhood SES was associated with poor working memory and language proficiency in both children and adults. The evidence supports dual-generation interventions that target improving cognition and academic performance in children and parenting efficacy in parents.

In Study 3, Mendoza et al. demonstrate the protective value of parent utilization of adult-directed intervention services in a population of Early Head Start families (child-directed intervention). Parent utilization of adult-directed services moderated the effect of maternal depression on child externalizing symptoms such that in families with low service-utilization children had more externalizing symptoms as maternal depression symptoms increased, but this relationship was not present with high service-utilization.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver

Discussant

• Sarah E Watamura, University of Denver

Individual Presentations

• The Role of Childhood Poverty Exposure in Neural Sensitivity to Baby Cries in Adulthood - Presenting Author: Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver; Shaun H Ho, Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Gary W Evans, Cornell Univ; Israel Liberzon, University of Michigan Health System; James E. Swain, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Effects of socioeconomic status on cognition and related neural systems in childhood and adulthood - Presenting Author: Courtney Stevens, Willamette University; Eric Pakulak, University of Oregon; Yoshiko Yamada, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon; Amanda Hampton Wray, Michigan State Univ; Helen Neville, University of Oregon

• Increased Child Externalizing Symptoms in Families Receiving Only Child-Directed vs. Child and Adult-Directed Intervention - Presenting Author: Marina M Mendoza, University of Denver; Lisa Schlueter McFadyen-Ketchum, University of Denver; Eliana Hurwich-Reiss, University of Denver; Sarah E Watamura, University of Denver