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

• Published in: Child development Vol. 73; no. 1; pp. 110 - 131
• Main Authors: Hubbs-Tait, Laura, Culp, Anne McDonald, Culp, Rex E., Miller, Carrie E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishers Inc 01.01.2002; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Ability; Achievement; Adult; Aptitude; Behavior; Behaviour; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child Development Centers; Child, Preschool; Children; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition and Language; Cognitive abilities; Cognitive Development; Cognitive stimulation; Development; Developmental psychology; Early Intervention (Education); Effects; Emotional Experience; Emotional support; Emotions; Family; Feedback; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Head Start project; Humans; Infants; Internal-External Control; Kindergarten; Kindergarten education; Language Development; Low Income Groups; Male; Maternal Behavior; Mental stimulation; Middle Aged; Mother-Child Relations; Mothers; Parent Influence; Parent Role; Parent-child relations; Parenting; Parenting - psychology; Parents; Parents & parenting; Perceptual Development; Personality Assessment; Positive feedback; Preschool Children; Preschool Education; Problem Solving; Project Head Start; Psychological Needs; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social Support; Statistical significance; Statistical variance; Stimulation; Stimuli; Thinking; Young children; Human; Preschool age; Stimulation; Cognition; Emotion emotionality; Mother child relation; Verbal ability; Maternal behavior; Language; Follow up study; Social interaction; Language development; Problem solving; Cognitive development; Child
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00395

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.