Intervention with Adolescent Mother–Child Dyads and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: a Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The cognitive development of children of adolescent mothers has often been considered to be at risk. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to examine whether early intervention could help foster more positive cognitive development in the 0- to 4-year-old children of adolescent mothers. Twenty-two studies were reviewed, involving 29 different intervention strategies and 3577 participants. An overall effect size (corrected for publication bias) of d = .24 was found (95% CI .11, .36). Intervention strategies that focused specifically on the quality of parent-child interaction (d = .89; 95% CI .36, 1.43) or that included parent-child interaction as an important target of intervention (d = .53; 95% CI .34, .73) yielded greater effect sizes than those that emphasized maternal support and education (d = .23; 95% CI .12, .34). Intervention that was delivered in groups (d = .56; 95% CI .36, .74) yielded greater effectiveness than dyadic intervention (d = .27; 95% CI .14, .39). Intervention delivered by trained professionals (d = .39; 95% CI .22, .56) was more effective than that delivered by paraprofessionals (d = .20; 95% CI -.02, .61). Older studies (slope = -.015) and those that involved smaller numbers of participants (slope = -.0008) also yielded greater effect sizes. There was also a marginal tendency for shorter intervention strategies (slope = -.002), and those that involved younger children (slope = -.005) and mothers (slope = -.074) to show greater effects. Discussion focuses on the developmental and practical implications of these results.

Technology-Assisted Parenting Interventions for Families Experiencing Social Disadvantage: a Meta-Analysis

“…Bakermans-Kranenburg et al (2003) demonstrated that shorter attachment interventions in early childhood produced significantly greater positive change in maternal interactive behavior and child attachment security than did longer interventions. Similarly, Baudry et al (2016) found that shorter interventions with adolescent mothers and their young children were linked to higher levels of child cognitive function. Such findings may be especially relevant for groups experiencing potential risk.…”

“…Intervention length may also have a moderating effect. Shorter interventions have been linked to greater improvements in parent and child outcomes (Bakermans-Kranenburg et al 2003;Baudry et al 2016;Pinquart and Teubert 2010); however, longer intervention strategies (i.e., the Nurse Family Partnership) are also effective (Olds 2006). Date of publication was assessed because, in contrast to in-person delivery, technology-assisted interventions may be more susceptible to changes across time, including increased technological capacity and accessibility (Jones 2014).…”

Testing the limits: Extending attachment-based intervention effects to infant cognitive outcome and parental stress

“…Several other studies have shown that with high-risk parents, most effective strategies for improving infant and early childhood cognitive outcome involve some level of interactive coaching, supporting basic theoretical postulates on the factors that drive early development (Sroufe et al, 2005). In a recent meta-analysis of 23 intervention studies concerned with the infant and early childhood cognitive outcome of the offspring of adolescent mothers, our group found effect sizes two to three times greater when specific interaction coaching strategies were part of intervention procedures than when intervention focused on other aspects of the developmental ecology (Baudry, Tarabulsy, Atkinson, Pearson, & St-Pierre, 2017). Moreover, interactive coaching has been successfully used with premature or otherwise biologically at-risk infants to improve the potential for child cognitive development (Field, Widmayer, Greenberg, & Stoller, 1982;Wallace & Rogers, 2010).…”

Meta-Analysis with Robust Variance Estimation: Expanding the Range of Working Models

“…Over the past ten years, Prevention Science alone has published thirty such reviews, including reviews on substance abuse prevention programs (Hennessy & Tanner-Smith, 2015), mental health interventions (Conley et al, 2015), and parenting interventions (Baudry et al, 2017).…”