Maternal Literacy and Associations Between Education and the Cognitive Home Environment in Low-Income Families

Green, Cori M.; Berkule, Samantha B.; Dreyer, Benard P.; Fierman, Arthur H.; Huberman, Harris S.; Klass, Perri; Tomopoulos, Suzy; Yin, H. Shonna; Morrow, Lesley Mandel; Mendelsohn, Alan L.

doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2009.136

Cited by 42 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…This echoes previous findings which suggest that while education is a marker for literacy, literacy levels which shape parenting practices like reading vary within particular educational levels, within what health researchers regard as at risk subpopulations (Green et al (2009)). The pathways to happiness via reading together could be through either its pure entertainment value, or the fact that, for very young children, reading with a parent involves close social interactions with the primary carer.…”

Section: Child Happinesssupporting

confidence: 84%

The development and happiness of very young children

Anand

Roope

2016

Soc Choice Welf

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The paper demonstrates how Sen's (1985) alternative approach to welfare economics can be used to shed light on the wellbeing of very young children. More specifically, we estimate versions of the three key relations from his framework using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) Survey. Our primary models provide evidence that skills are related to involvement in cognate activities with a parent, indicating a behavioural relationship between capabilities and activities which is not explicit in Sen's original set-up, but is key to the development and happiness of young children. A second set of models indicates that the daily activities of very young children are related to household income but that in some cases the association with parenting inputs is stronger. Thirdly, we report happiness regressions for the children which seem to suggest that shopping and reading are valued but that their distribution is limited in some cases -probably either by household income or parental education. Across the piece, we find that the number of siblings is negatively related to activity involvement with parents, as hypothesised by Becker, but positively related to everyday, motor and social skills. Combined with evidence from other studies, we conclude that the capability approach provides a useful framework for understanding the economics of wellbeing across the entire life course.

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Section: Child Happinesssupporting

confidence: 84%

The development and happiness of very young children

Anand

Roope

2016

Soc Choice Welf

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“…59 Low-SES populations bear disproportionate risk, fueling cycles of academic failure, poverty and poor health outcomes. 59, 60 Contributing factors include deficient reading role models and routines in the home, 61, 62 especially during the span of rapid brain development from birth through age 5, when children often enter kindergarten. 17 As reading is an evolutionarily new skill requiring the integration of brain networks adapted for language, visual imagery, and executive functions (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared Reading Quality and Brain Activation during Story Listening in Preschool-Age Children

Hutton

Phelan

Horowitz‐Kraus

et al. 2017

The Journal of Pediatrics

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Objective To explore the relationship between maternal shared reading quality (verbal interactivity and engagement) and brain function during story listening in at-risk, preschool-age children, in the context of behavioral evidence and American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations. Study design In this cross-sectional study, 22 healthy, 4-year-old girls from low-socioeconomic status (SES) households completed functional MRI using an established story listening task, followed by videotaped observation of un-coached mother-daughter reading of the same, age-appropriate picture book. Shared reading quality was independently scored applying dialogic reading and other evidence-based criteria reflecting interactivity and engagement, and applied as a predictor of neural activation during the fMRI task, controlling for income and maternal education. Results Shared reading quality scores were generally low, and negatively correlated with maternal distraction by smartphones (P < .05). Scores were positively correlated with activation in left-sided brain areas supporting expressive and complex language, social-emotional integration and working memory (p < 0.05, false discovery rate corrected). Conclusion Maternal shared reading quality is positively correlated with brain activation supporting complex language, executive function, and social-emotional processing in at-risk, preschool-age children. These findings represent novel neural biomarkers of how this modifiable aspect of home reading environment may influence foundational emergent literacy skills, reinforce behavioral evidence and AAP recommendations, and underscore the potential of dialogic reading interventions to promote healthy brain development, especially in at-risk households.

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“…Educated mothers are less likely to be depressed, and usually provide a more supportive and better quality home environment, better nutrition for their children, and have higher educational expectations (Green et al, 2009; Hamadani et al, 2014; Walker et al, 2011). In Bogota, maternal education was also more important than parental education in all scales except socio-emotional.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediating pathways in the socio-economic gradient of child development

Rubio‐Codina

Attanasio

Grantham‐McGregor³

2016

International Journal of Behavioral Development

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Research has previously shown a gap of near 0.5 of a standard deviation (SD) in cognition and language development between the top and bottom household wealth quartile in children aged 6–42 months in a large representative sample of low- and middle-income families in Bogota, using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. The gaps in fine motor and socio-emotional development were about half that size. Developmental deficits increased with age. The current study explored the associations amongst child development, household socio-economic status (SES), and a set of potential mediating variables—parental characteristics, child biomedical factors, and the quality of the home environment—in this sample. We ran mediation tests to quantify the contribution of these variables to the SES gap, and explored the role of age as a moderator. Parental education, particularly maternal education, and the quality of the home environment mediated the SES gap in all outcomes examined. Height-for-age mediated a small amount of the deficit in language scales only. More educated mothers provided better home stimulation than less educated mothers and the home environment partly mediated the effect of maternal education. These results suggested that in interventions aimed at promoting child development, those focusing on the quality of the home environment should be effective.

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Maternal Literacy and Associations Between Education and the Cognitive Home Environment in Low-Income Families

Cited by 42 publications

References 47 publications

The development and happiness of very young children

The development and happiness of very young children

Shared Reading Quality and Brain Activation during Story Listening in Preschool-Age Children

Mediating pathways in the socio-economic gradient of child development

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