Modelling the Impact of Parent-Child Interactions on the Skill Development of Primary School Children

• In Event: Families and contexts that shape developmental trajectories

Abstract

This paper defines a theoretical framework to model the developmental trajectories of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in primary school children and capture the role that parenting plays in the joint evolution of these skills. Applying this model to nationally representative, longitudinal survey data from the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study (n = 8,379) allows me to examine the developmental trajectories of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in primary school children and to measure the role that parenting plays in the joint evolution of these skills.
The proposed framework draws on theoretical models and empirical findings from the fields of economics, psychology and education. Specifically, this paper adapts the economic framework of Cunha and Heckman (2007, 2008) to separately measure the effect of financial resources and of inputs to development in the form of parenting behaviours; to allow for literature from psychology and education to aid in the identification of multiple types of such parental inputs; and to examine the differing impacts from each of these types of investment.
The resulting structural equation model is applied to a sample (n = 8,379) from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), a longitudinal cohort survey that follows a nationally representative sample children born in the UK in 2000–2001. Using repeated measures of parenting behaviors at ages 3, 5, and 7, three separate latent parental inputs are identified. Each of these inputs has a significant effect on the development of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills, but the model identifies differing periods of sensitivity to each type of parental input. Using this methodology this paper provides precise estimates of how cognitive and non-cognitive skills evolve from birth to adolescence; and specific measurements of how the time that parents spend with their children impacts skill development.
Since this model is designed to distinguish between types of parental input, it allows for more precise estimates of the effect that various parental behaviours have on child development, as well as the identification of the specific periods of childhood during which these investments might be most effective. Such findings offer insights into both the content and the timing of interventions to help at-risk children.

Author

• Ashton Brown, University of Cambridge
  Presenting Author