Poster #39 - Grandparent Support Moderates the Relationship between Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Cognitive Development

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

Socioeconomic status (SES) is significantly related to young children’s cognitive development, including language, literacy, and math achievement (Letourneau et al., 2011). We propose that grandparent support attenuates the link between lower SES and lower cognitive development. Grandparents are a main source of support for parents, including financial, instrumental, emotional, and informational support (Findler, 2000; Van Heerden & Wild, 2017). According to the ecological systems theory, children develop within a broader context of environmental, social, and cultural influences (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). If children experience high social support, they may be buffered from external forces that have a negative impact on families, such as poverty (Hayslip & Furhauf, 2019). Thus, we hypothesized that when grandparents provide a high level of support, there is a weaker association between SES and children’s cognitive development.

Parents (N = 437) and their 3- to 5-year-old children (M = 4.18 years; SD = 0.74) from 45 U.S. states participated. All data were collected using an online survey. Participants were primarily biological mothers (87.6%), White (83.4%), and married or living with a co-parent (92%). SES was measured with a composite of family income (adjusted for family size) and average parent education. Grandparent support was measured for each grandparent relationship (N = 1047) in terms of: 1) providing financial support, 2) lending a hand, 3) emotional support, and 4) providing useful childrearing information. Responses ranged from 1 (never helpful) to 5 (very helpful). Grandparent surveys for each participant were summed such that the unit of analysis is the parent. Children’s cognitive development was measured with the Child Development Inventory (CDI; Ireton, 1992), including the Expressive Language, Language Comprehension, Letters, and Numbers scales. For each item (66 total), parents indicated whether their child performs the skill (e.g., Prints the numbers 1 through 9). Because categories of both grandparent support and the CDI were strongly correlated, total grandparent support and total CDI composite scores were created.

In a hierarchical regression predicting children’s cognitive development (Table 1), four covariates accounted for significant variation in child cognitive development at step 1. In step 2, SES was positively associated with child cognitive development; grandparent support was unrelated to children’s cognitive development. In step 3, there was a significant interaction between SES and cognitive development. To further explore this interaction, associations between SES and cognitive development were tested at high and low levels of grandparent support. SES was significantly associated with cognitive development in families with low to average grandparent support but not when grandparent support was high (Figure 1). That is, even among the lowest SES families in the sample, children’s cognitive development was not related to SES when grandparent support was high. These results suggest that grandparents are a strength for lower-SES families. Although not directly examined, it is possible that more grandparent support means parents have more material resources and more time to devote to activities that promote cognitive development, which is more meaningful when parents’ resources are already low.

Authors

• Virginia L Tompkins, The Ohio State University at Lima
  Presenting Author

• Xin Feng, The Ohio State University