Parental beliefs on child development and child outcomes go hand-in-hand—and those beliefs can be shifted

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/930169

 

 News Release 1-Oct-2021
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of Chicago Medical Center

 

In a paper published October 1 in Nature Communications, University of Chicago Medicine pediatrician Dana Suskind, MD, along with University of Chicago economists John List, PhD, and Julie Pernaudet, PhD investigate one potential source of discrepancy in child skill level: disparity in parents’ beliefs about their influence over their children’s development.

Through experimental studies involving hundreds of families across the Chicagoland area, the researchers show parental knowledge and beliefs differ across socioeconomic status. But these beliefs can, with the right intervention, be changed. Moreover, these changes can have measurable effects on child outcomes. The results may offer policymakers insights into addressing an important contributor to disparities in child skill development.

“Neuroscience clearly shows that building early brain connections in children relies on the nurturing ‘serve and return,’ meaning the interactions between adult and child,” said Suskind, Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics and Co-Director of the TMW Center for Early Learning and Public Health.

For this reason, differences in parental engagement can lead to differences in children’s brain development and their capabilities later on.

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 On average, the more education a parent had, the more their knowledge and beliefs were aligned with what the science shows. The more aligned their beliefs were with the science, the more facilitative behavior there was,” said Suskind.

However, within six months of starting the experiments, the beliefs of the treatment groups had shifted significantly from those of the control groups, although both were made up of parents of similar demographics. Moreover, the more intensive home visiting program saw more than twice the impact.

“With these different tiers of intervention,” said Suskind, “we could shift what parents know and believe and by doing so, shift their behavior in the positive direction.”

As parents began to believe their investments mattered, they began to invest more heavily in their children’s development. Suskind and her team saw statistically significant improvements in parent-child interactions over the span of both experiments.

These results were also correlated with improvements in child outcomes, such as vocabulary, math skills and social-emotional skills. Both experiments saw gains in outcomes, but the more intensive program again had a stronger effect.

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