Factors related to parents’ engagement in cognitive and socio-emotional caregiving in developing countries: Results from Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 3

Maternal, paternal, and other caregivers’ stimulation in low- and- middle-income countries

“…These activities have been found to show adequate predictive validity, [19,22] and to be correlated with children's development and household characteristics as measured by the MICS. [23] Following UNICEF [32] and previous research conducted with the MICS, [30] we created a count index for the number of activities each caregiver engaged in with the child and defined high stimulation as engagement in least four out of the six activities.…”

“…[19][20][21][22] Past research has shown both within-and between-country socioeconomic gradients in maternal stimulation. [7,18,23,24] Families living in low-income contexts are more likely than their advantaged peers to experience a host of risk factors, including poor health, inadequate nutrition, lower levels of parental education, psychosocial stressors, and inadequate services, each of which can constrain aspects of nurturing care such as parental stimulation. [25,26] Moreover, low-income households generally have fewer resources and materials for caregivers to use with their children for play and early learning (e.g., children's books, toys, household objects for play).…”

“…Finally, prior studies on stimulation practices in LMICs are based on older data collected before 2010. [18,23,28] Since then, data on caregivers' stimulation practices have been made available in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) rounds 4, 5, and 6, and also recently in several rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).…”

Paternal Stimulation and Early Child Development in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

“…This twofold difference between prevalence of maternal and paternal stimulation is consistent with findings of the only other study known to the authors that has previously described maternal and paternal stimulation caregiving practices in LMICs. 40 Second, lower levels of paternal stimulation appear to have small but statistically significant negative associations with child development, even after controlling for various potentially confounding characteristics. Our results indicate that, relative to a highly engaged father, having a moderately engaged father is associated with 0.09 SD lower ECDI scores, whereas having an unengaged father is associated with 0.14 SD lower ECDI scores.…”

Positive discipline, harsh physical discipline, physical discipline and psychological aggression in five Caribbean countries: Associations with preschoolers' early literacy skills

“…The following variables were used as controls: mothers' highest level of education (1 = at least secondary, 0 = not), area of residence (1 = urban, 0 = rural), children's age (in months) and sex (1 = male, 0 = female), preschool enrolment (1 = enrolled, 0 = not enrolled), mothers' age (in years) and marital status (1 = married, 0 = not) and household wealth index. A composite measure of household wealth index was created using the source of drinking water, type of toilet facility, number of rooms for sleeping, type of main material for floor and roof, access to electricity and household assets (see Sun, Liu, Chen, Rao, & Liu, ).…”