Research (as well as common sense and folk wisdom) has shown that “parental investments” are critical to the healthy development of young children. However, studies also show that such investments—including time spent with children and other non-financial inputs—differ substantially by socioeconomic status (SES). A recent NBER paper explores how parental beliefs about child development, including the parents’ own role in it, could impact socioeconomic inequalities and whether those beliefs can be changed in hopes of narrowing that gap.
A trio of researchers from the University of Chicago begin by showing dramatic differences in parental beliefs across SES, with higher-SES parents more likely to believe that their investments impact child development (with “investments” here defined as high-quality parent-child interactions). They then carry out two field experiments focused on low-SES families to see if their beliefs are malleable and, if so, whether those revised beliefs improve their investments in their child and, subsequently, their child’s outcomes.
The first experiment involved newborns: The researchers partnered with ten pediatric clinics in the Chicago metro area that all reached traditionally medically underserved, underinsured, or uninsured populations. They worked with parents during their first well-child visit, three to five days after birth. A total of 475 parent-child dyads met the study’s SES and health eligibility criteria and were randomized into treatment and control groups. Treatment group parents watched four videos (ten minutes each) when they arrived at the clinic for additional well-child visits at one, two, four, and six months. The videos provided information on the role of parents in the early stages of child development, on brain malleability, on babies’ capabilities, and on how parents can leverage this knowledge in their daily routines with their baby, specifically around what language-rich interactions look like. The control group either watched four videos about safety tips for babies or did not watch videos.
The second experiment was a more intensive, home-visit program and, like the other experiment, emphasized language-rich interactions. The researchers recruited parents of twenty-four- to thirty-month old children in medical clinics, grocery stores, daycare facilities, and public transportation venues around Chicago. A total of ninety-one dyads met the SES and health criteria and again were randomized into treatment and control groups. The treatment group received two home visits each month for six months; the twelve visits were an hour each and followed a curriculum designed to foster both cognitive and social-emotional development by improving parental beliefs. The curriculum started with a video that covered a specific area of child development (such as linguistic interaction, incorporation of math into an everyday routine, or how to encourage your child), followed by a home visitor-led activity with the parent or caregiver to demonstrate how to put the concept into practice. The control group received a nutrition intervention with packets of information reviewed with the parents and caregivers during the home visits, which took place every six weeks over six months.
In both experiments, they collected extensive data about parental beliefs—such as whether they agree with a statement like “Children zero to two years old can learn just as many words from educational TV as they can from their parents”—data on children’s skill levels, and the quality of parent-child interactions. The latter was measured using audio recordings of all the sounds produced by and around the child (captured by a sound-recording T-shirt worn by the child) during a series of eight-hour recording days. Recordings were processed using speech recognition software to separate language from noise, sentences from words, etc., and to gauge the linguistic quality of those sounds.
Both experiments had an impact on parents’ beliefs and child outcomes, but the less-intensive version did not last; improvements faded by twelve to eighteen months. The more intensive home visits positively impacted parent-child interactions, vocabulary, math skills, and social-emotional skills, lasting the full timeline of the experiment, i.e., 3.5 years later. The researchers supplemented their results with data from a related study and found that a 1.0 standard deviation (SD) increase in parental knowledge and beliefs when the child is between thirteen and sixteen months is associated with a 0.8 to 1.2 SD increase in language skills later—up to three years and four months old. Their estimates suggest that parent beliefs alone can explain up to 18.7 percent of the variation in child language skills at this early age.
Everyone knows that there are multiple deep drivers of inequality that prevent many kids from getting a fair start in life. These daunting challenges can discourage even our best efforts. Thankfully, this study points to one potential pathway to lessen one particular mechanism of said inequality. Yet we don’t have data tracking these children into school. Will the improvements from the more intensive version of the experiment fade over the long term? It would help to know that answer before engaging in what appears to be intensive but promising parent empowerment work.
SOURCE: John A. List, Julie Pernaudet, and Dana Suskind, “It All Starts with Beliefs: Addressing the Roots of Educational Inequities by Shifting Parental Beliefs,” NBER WorkingPaper #29394 (October 2021).
