Supporting Early Social-Emotional Competencies Through Reading and Play: Findings from the Smart Beginnings RCT

• In Event: When, for Whom, and why? Disentangling the Relations Between Positive Parenting and School Readiness

Abstract

Given the impact of social-emotional competence on children’s social and school-related outcomes (Domitrovich, 2017), there is interest in understanding individual differences in the development of these skills and the factors that promote them prior to elementary-school entry. Positive parenting, and in particular, the tendency to engage children in cognitive stimulation (e.g., reading, talking, playing) has been shown to relate to preschool children’s social outcomes (Hindman, 2012). However, it is unclear whether these associations emerge at earlier ages, and particularly, whether cognitive stimulation during the first two years of life would support toddlers’ developing social competencies. These questions are important for families living in poverty. Systemic injustices have resulted in barriers to resources that encourage positive parenting and reduced opportunities for children to develop social-emotional competencies (Heard-Garris, 2021). However, cognitive stimulation may represent a resiliency factor that buffers the consequences of poverty on children’s early social outcomes. If so, then interventions that promote cognitive stimulation may also enhance children’s early social-emotional competencies through impact on these parenting behaviors.
Here, we examined whether cognitive stimulation in the infant and toddler years would predict toddlers’ social competence among Black and Latino families with low income. As an exploratory aim, we also examined whether participation in a positive parenting intervention could indirectly impact child outcomes through differences in parents’ cognitive stimulation. Mother-infant dyads in the Smart Beginnings (SB) RCT were randomly assigned to treatment or control. SB treatment integrates two evidence-based positive parenting interventions 1) universal primary prevention (Video Interaction Project [VIP]); and 2) targeted/secondary prevention (Family Check-up [FCU]) for families with additional risks. VIP takes place during pediatric visits and involves provision of books/toys, and video-recording parent-child interactions with review and reinforcement of positive parenting and cognitive stimulation. FCU (Dishion & Stormshak, 2007) involves home visiting with an interventionist who assesses family functioning and uses motivational interviewing and family management strategies to support positive parenting, including engagement in reciprocal interactions.
Demographics were assessed at baseline (Table1). At 6 and 24m, cognitive stimulation was assessed via survey and observation including the StimQ2 interview (Reading and Verbal Responsivity; Mendelsohn, 2011), and 10-minute recordings of parent-child free-play, coded using the Parent-Child Interaction Rating Scales – Infant Adaptation. At 24m, parents completed the Infant and Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (Briggs-Gowan & Carter, 2007), a measure of toddlers’ social-emotional competence. Structural Equation Modeling showed that mothers’ cognitive stimulation significantly predicted children’s social competence at 24 months (Figure1). In addition, there was an indirect effect of the SB treatment on children’s social competence through maternal cognitive stimulation.
These findings suggest that associations between cognitive stimulation and children’s social-emotional competence emerge earlier than previously shown, and that cognitive stimulation is an area of resilience that supports social-emotional competencies among toddlers living in poverty. These results also provide some evidence that positive parenting interventions can support early social competence through their impact on cognitive stimulation. Therefore, primary interventions focused on decreasing poverty-related disparities in social-emotional outcomes and school readiness may be optimized by including support for enhancing cognitive stimulation.

Authors

• Erin Roby, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth B. Miller, New York University School of Medicine

• Caitlin Ford Canfield, NYU Grossman School of Medicine

• Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh

• Pamela Morris-Perez, New York University

• Alan L Mendelsohn, NYU Grossman School of Medicine