Relation of Maternal Cognitive Stimulation, Emotional Support, and Intrusive Behavior during Head Start to Children’s Kindergarten Cognitive Abilities

Abstract

The current study examined how parental cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusiveness measured during children's prekindergarten year were related to children's verbal and nonverbal abilities 1 year later. Participants were 110 Head Start children and their caregivers from primarily rural and low-income backgrounds. Analysis of children's scores on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities confirmed the predictive utility of cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusive behavior for perceptual scores (20% of the unique variance) as well as the predictive utility of emotional support and intrusive behavior for verbal scores (15% of the unique variance). Parental emotional support during guidance of problem solving (positive feedback) explained statistically significant unique variance in children's perceptual scores beyond other measures of emotional support. Cognitive stimulation moderated the relation between positive feedback and perceptual scores. Although other syntactic forms of maternal utterances such as commands did not explain statistically significant unique variance in children's scores beyond emotional support and intrusive behavior, mothers' questions did. Specific policy implications of the effects are discussed.

Socio-emotional climate of storybook reading interactions for mothers and preschoolers with language impairment

“…Qualities of maternal behaviors that appear to hold special developmental significance to their children include emotional support/supportive presence (e.g., Hubbs-Tait et al, 2002), linguistic responsiveness (e.g., Akhtar, Dunham, & Dunham, 1991;Fewell & Deutscher, 2004;Tamis-LeMonda et al, 2001), linguistic complexity (e.g., Hoff-Ginsberg, 1986;Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Cymerman, & Levine, 2002), and cognitive complexity (e.g., Diaz, Neal, & Vachio, 1991;Roberts & Barnes, 1992;van Kleeck, Gillam, Hamilton, & McGrath, 1997). Qualities of maternal interactive behaviors explain significant and unique amounts of variance in children's achievements both concurrently (i.e., when measured within the same task or at the same time point, e.g., Diaz et al, 1991;Huttenlocher et al, 2002) and longitudinally (Connor & Cross 2003;Morrison et al, 2003;Pianta & Harbers, 1996), a finding that holds for children developing typically (e.g., Roberts & Barnes, 1992) as well as those exhibiting developmental disabilities or other risk factors (e.g., Crawley & Spiker, 1983;Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, & Swank, 1997;Roberts, Jurgens, & Burchinal, 2005;Tamis-LeMonda et al, 2001.…”

Unge udsatte mødre og deres små børn

“…Den anden diskussion er optaget af såkaldte individuelle forklaringsmodeller på den enkeltes udsathed. Her knyttes an til forståelser af udsathed omhandlende den enkeltes kognitive, sociale og emotionelle kompetencer, herunder også diagnoser og udviklingspsykologiske vanskeligheder (Ainsworth, 1978;Fraiberg, 1980;Bowlby, 1998;Gross et al, 2003;Hubbs-Tait et al, 2002;Laucht, 2003;Stern, 1985;Ziegenhain, 2004).…”

Daginstitutionens betydning for udsatte børn og deres familier i ghetto‐lignende boligområder

“…En raekke studier indkredser således en sammenhaeng mellem foraeldres sociale og økonomiske status i relation til barnets vanskeligheder, der antages at have afgørende betydning for barnets udvikling (Baxter & Kahn 1999;Primavera 2000;Hubbs-Tait et al 2002;Gross et al 2003;Lyons-Ruth & Meknick 2004).…”