Associations Between Services Available to Pregnant Women Through Early Head Start and Toddlers’ Socioemotional Development

• In Event: Comprehensive Family Services in Early Care and Education Programs Serving Infants and Toddlers

Abstract

Early Head Start (EHS) is a federally funded, comprehensive early childhood program for children and families experiencing low income. EHS is two-generational in nature, meaning it offers services for pregnant women and parents (e.g., continuing education, referrals to resources), as well as young children (e.g., early childhood education, developmental screenings). EHS and other two-generation programs, like home visiting, have been shown to promote parent and child outcomes when they begin as early as pregnancy (ACF, 2006; Kendrick et al., 2000; Michalopoulos et al., 2019; Olds et al., 2019). EHS is unique in that it provides both home visiting (HV)- and center-based early care and education options for children, and benefits have been seen from both types of programming (Love et al., 2005; Raikes et al., 2014).
The goals of this study are to 1) understand the associations between the availability of different types of services for pregnant women through EHS and their children’s socioemotional development at age 2, and 2) examine whether these associations differ across subgroups of children who attended HV- or center-based EHS at age 1. We use data on a sample of children whose mothers enrolled in EHS during pregnancy and remained enrolled in EHS through age 2 (N = 244) from the Early Head Start Child and Family Experiences Study (Vogel & Boller, 2009-2012). This was a diverse sample of children (24% Black, 42% Hispanic, 25% white; 47%, dual language learners) and mothers (29% married; average age at child’s birth = 24, SD = 5). Differences between children attending HV and center-based EHS on demographic characteristics, numbers of services available to mothers during pregnancy, and children’s socioemotional outcomes are shown in Table 1.
Results from OLS regression models (shown in Table 2) revealed that, across all children, having more comprehensive services available to their mothers during pregnancy was associated with lower problem behaviors at age 2 (B = -1.27, SE = 0.45, p < .01). While there were not any statistically significant associations between any of the types of services available during pregnancy and toddlers’ social competence in the full sample, for children who had HV at age 1, having more services relating to ongoing health care and health insurance available to their mothers during pregnancy was associated with higher competence at age 2 (B = 3.41, SE = 1.15, p < .01).
These results indicate that providing pregnant women with access to comprehensive services may have later benefits in terms of lessening their toddlers’ problem behaviors. For pregnant women whose infants then enter EHS HV, there may also be benefits of services related to ongoing health care and health insurance insofar as promoting social competence in toddlerhood. Further research is needed to unpack the mechanisms through which these services that are available to pregnant women through EHS can be beneficial for their children (e.g., improving parental health and wellbeing, connecting families with necessary social services and child care), and especially the work being doing in EHS HV that may bolster the effects.

Authors

• Eleanor Fisk, James Bell Associates
  Presenting Author

• Caitlin S Lombardi, University of Connecticut