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Poster #139 - Individual and Combined Effects of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Sensitivity and Child Academic Achievement

Sat, March 23, 4:15 to 5:30pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Sensitivity is the ability to perceive and to accurately interpret the signals implicit in the child’s behavior, and to respond to these signals appropriately and promptly (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). Since seminal studies in the mid-1900s, decades of research have attested to the importance of sensitive parenting (Coley, Lewin-Bizan, & Carrano, 2011). From a neo-Vygotskian perspective, sensitive parents helps children with activities that they are unable to do on their own (Martin, Ryan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010; Vygotsky, 1978), e.g. imparting strategies for solving problems. Most studies on the link between sensitivity and child cognitive outcomes focused on mothers. Despite increasing interest in fathers’ parenting, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the combined effects of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting practices.

Hypotheses: In the current study, we tested two hypotheses: (1) Maternal and paternal sensitivity are independently associated with child academic achievement; (2) Children with two supportive parents score highest on academic achievement.

Methods: The current study is embedded within a prospective study investigating growth, development, and health from fetal life onwards in a population-based birth cohort. In total, 252 families are included in the current study. At the child’s age of 4, home visits were conducted to observe parent–child interaction in problem-solving tasks. Parental supportiveness and nonintrusiveness were coded using the revised Erickson scales (Egeland, Erickson, Clemenhagen-Moon, Hiester, & Korfmacher, 1990). Supportiveness refers to the degree to which positive regard and emotional support to the child is expressed; nonintrusiveness refers to the degree to which the parent respects the child’s autonomy (Erickson et al., 1985). Academic achievement was assessed at age 12 using a Dutch test of educational achievement, the CITO-test. The CITO-test is administered in the final class of elementary school and assesses the intellectual skills of the child. The following covariates were taken into account: parental educational level, marital status, child gender and age.

Results: Multiple regression analyses showed that mothers’ supportiveness (but not nonintrusiveness) and father’s nonintrusiveness (but not supportiveness) at age 4 were positively associated with academic achievement eight years later. Moreover, the interaction term between maternal supportiveness and paternal supportiveness turned out to be significant, suggesting that academic achievement at age 12 is highest when both parents show high levels of supportiveness in early childhood (see Figure 1).

Discussion: Fathers may interact with their infants in somewhat different ways compared to mothers (Grossmann, Grossmann, Kindler, & Zimmermann, 2008). These differences might be represented by our results. Mothers might relate to their children with sensitive warmth, whereas fathers might choose sensitive stimulation as a way to promote cognitive development. Our results also show that the effects of supportiveness are largest when both parents are highly supportive. The next step in the analyses is to include child competence, assessed at the age of nine, as a possible mediating variable in the relationship between parental sensitivity and child academic achievement. These analyses are ongoing.

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