Family Income Moderates the Association between Maternal Parenting and Young Children’s Cognitive and Language Development

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

By being responsive and supportive, parents help foster young children’s cognitive and language development (Tamis-LeMonda & Rodriguez, 2008). However, childhood exposure to poverty is associated with reduced cognitive outcomes and language deficits (Hoff, 2003; Najman et al, 2009). The current study examined household income, mother-child interactions, and their interplay as predictors of child cognitive and language development during early childhood. We hypothesized that maternal support, responsiveness, and quality of instruction would be associated with young children’s cognitive and language development, but that these associations would be dampened among the lowest income families.
Participants consisted of 115 primarily low-income mother-child dyads (55% male children) recruited in a large city as part of a longitudinal study on child development. 87% of participants were African-American; 9% were Caucasian. During the 3-year lab visit, mothers reported their highest level of education and household income (1 = <$10,000; 16 = >$250,000). Dyads were then videotaped during a series of parent-child interaction tasks. This study focused on a difficult teaching task, during which the mother taught the child to sort blocks first by color and then by shape. Coders scored the videotapes for maternal behaviors, including maternal Positive Content, assessing her provision of emotional and cognitive support to the child; maternal Responsiveness, assessing her responsiveness to the child’s verbal and non-verbal behavior; and maternal Quality of Instruction. The Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development, 3rd Edition (Bayley, 2006) was used, yielding a measured children’s cognitive and receptive and expressive language functioning.
Controlling for child sex, gestational age at birth, and maternal education, only Quality of Instruction was associated with child cognitive and receptive and expressive language scores. There was a significant interaction between household income and maternal Positive Content when predicting child cognitive development and expressive language abilities, maternal Responsiveness when predicting cognitive outcomes, and Quality of Instruction when predicting expressive language (Table 1). Simple slopes analyses indicated that maternal Positive Content was associated with higher child cognitive scores at higher income (+1 SD), β = .34, p < .01, but not lower (-1 SD) income, β = -.06, p = .709 (Figure 1). Similarly, positive content was associated with expressive language at higher income, β = .37, p < .01, but not lower income, β = -.09, p = .571. Regarding maternal Responsiveness, simple slope analyses indicated that higher maternal Responsiveness was associated with cognitive development at higher income, β = .42, p < .01, but not lower income, β = -.24, p = .31. Finally, Quality of Instruction was associated with expressive language skills at higher income, β = .26, p < .05, but not lower income, β = -.06, p = .74.
These findings suggest that disadvantages associated with poverty may not be completely addressed by increasing maternal positive parenting behaviors and highlight the need to explore additional factors that influence cognitive and language development and to develop additional interventions for children in poverty to promote cognitive and language development.

Authors

• Sarah Wilhoit, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author

• Marjorie Beeghly, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Moriah E. Thomason, New York University School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher Joseph Trentacosta, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author