Parental Input Research Articles

Early Rearing Conditions Affect Monoamine Metabolite Levels During Baseline and Periods of Social Separation Stress: A Non-human Primate Model (Macaca mulatta).

A variety of studies show that parental absence early in life leads to deleterious effects on the developing CNS. This is thought to be largely because evolutionary-dependent stimuli are necessary for the appropriate postnatal development of the young brain, an effect sometimes termed the “experience-expectant brain,” with parents providing the necessary input for normative synaptic connections to develop and appropriate neuronal survival to occur. Principal among CNS systems affected by parental input are the monoamine systems. In the present study, N = 434 rhesus monkeys (233 males, 201 females) were reared in one of two conditions: as mother-reared controls (MR; n = 269) or without adults with 24-h access to same-aged peers (PR; n = 165). When subjects were six-months-old, they underwent a separation paradigm involving 4, sequential, four-day social separations from their mothers or peers, with each separation followed by three-day reunions with their mothers or their peers. Prior to the separation paradigm, baseline cisternal CSF samples were obtained, as well as at the end of each the four social separations, and after final separation, during a recovery period. CSF was assayed for concentrations of monoamine metabolites and a blood sample was genotyped for the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype. Replicating earlier landmark findings, PR subjects with the s allele exhibited lower baseline concentrations of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), when compared to PR subjects homozygous for the L allele. MR subjects were undifferentiated by genotype. PR subjects exhibited lower CSF 5-HIAA concentrations during baseline, but higher CSF 5-HIAA during social separations, when compared to MR subjects. There were rearing effects for the dopamine metabolite homovanillic acid (HVA) and for the norepinephrine metabolite 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), with PR subjects showing higher HVA and lower MHPG when compared to MR subjects. These findings indicate that there are long-term deficits in the response of monoamines following early maternal absence. The results of this study confirm and extend earlier findings that early parental absence has deleterious consequences for the development of the monoamine systems, and that these consequences are modulated by the 5-HTT genotype.

Negotiating with parents: Attorney practices in the juvenile plea bargain process.

Research on plea bargaining is increasing, yet much of this work examines how the process unfolds in adult court. Plea bargaining in juvenile court has several notable differences such as parental involvement. Including parents throughout the adjudicatory process is encouraged but ultimately left up to the attorney. Research has not explored whether attorneys include parents in plea bargain discussions with their clients. The present study examined parental involvement in the juvenile plea bargain process. We did not have any formal a priori hypotheses for this exploratory study. The first author conducted qualitative interviews with eighteen defense attorneys from the juvenile division of a public defender's office on the East Coast where we discussed their most recent case that resulted in a plea bargain. Parents were included in plea negotiations and hearings. Attorneys described seeking parental input because parents may be impacted by the terms of the plea and because the court often seeks parental approval. During hearings, parents offered input regarding their child's ability to plea, the disposition plan, and whether they support their child's decision to plead guilty. Pleas might impact parents, so it may be impractical to overlook their interests. However, parent and child interests may conflict, and parents often lack understanding of their children's rights and pleading generally. Therefore, attorneys must not only advocate for their clients, but also educate and manage parents' interests both inside and outside the courtroom. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessment of the severity of infant crying and its impact on parents: Development and validation of the ColiQ Questionnaire in France

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire that comprehensively assesses symptoms and severity of crying, symptoms suggesting infant functional gastrointestinal discomfort, and its impact on parents’ quality of life: the Infant Colic Questionnaire (ColiQ©). For the first time, parents had access to a web application to follow their infants’ evolving symptoms with a daily questionnaire. MethodsThe ColiQ was developed with a board of clinical experts (physicians and psychologists) based on extensive parent input. A longitudinal, observational study was conducted in France for 3 months. ColiQ assessments were collected online at six different time points. Psychometric testing demonstrated that ColiQ has acceptable psychometric properties (reliability, internal consistency, construct validity, and responsiveness). ResultsThe ColiQ is a 16-question instrument developed in French including ten questions describing symptoms (Infant score) and six questions describing impacts (Parent score). The ColiQ demonstrated good test-retest reliability (ICC >0.70), internal consistency for both the Symptom and Impact subscale scores (Cronbach's α >0.70), and construct validity. Responsiveness was good; the ColiQ was able to detect significant improvement in the target population as early as 1 month (p<0.05). The global ColiQ score discriminated between severity levels (mild, medium, severe). ConclusionsThe ColiQ was developed with input from parents and healthcare professionals and has shown validity, reliably, and responsiveness to change. Parents can use the web application to follow how their infants’ symptoms evolve. The ColiQ can help parents quantify and verbalize their concerns during consultations, and provides an opportunity to facilitate conversations between the physician and parents.

Embedding parental input in instruction of SWPBS behavioral expectations for African American students

Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support, a framework for remediating and preventing student problem behaviors and supporting schools, has demonstrated a reduction in office disciplinary referrals (ODRs) among student groups. However, African American students are still overrepresented in ODRs. This study extended a prior study that explored parents’ perceptions of schoolwide expectations. The previous study resulted in the development of a social skill curriculum to embed parental input within the meaning of the expectations as one way to build cultural responsiveness. Specifically, authors aimed to examine the effects of the social skill curriculum on the nonadherence to classroom expectations of K-1 African American students’ using multiple-probes across participants design. Results indicated improved adherence to behavioral expectations across participants. Implications for research and practice are provided.

Effects of Time-Varying Parent Input on Children’s Language Outcomes Differ for Vocabulary and Syntax

Early linguistic input is a powerful predictor of children’s language outcomes. We investigated two novel questions about this relationship: Does the impact of language input vary over time, and does the impact of time-varying language input on child outcomes differ for vocabulary and for syntax? Using methods from epidemiology to account for baseline and time-varying confounding, we predicted 64 children’s outcomes on standardized tests of vocabulary and syntax in kindergarten from their parents’ vocabulary and syntax input when the children were 14 and 30 months old. For vocabulary, children whose parents provided diverse input earlier as well as later in development were predicted to have the highest outcomes. For syntax, children whose parents’ input substantially increased in syntactic complexity over time were predicted to have the highest outcomes. The optimal sequence of parents’ linguistic input for supporting children’s language acquisition thus varies for vocabulary and for syntax.

A Review of Parental Input, Investment and Social Stratification in Children's Sport Participation

Background: The difference of parental involvement in children's sport activities is a hot social issue when parental socio-economic background is investigated. Parental input, investment and social stratification could influence children's sport participation. Purpose: This study investigates the levels of parental physical activity and their investment in children's sport involvement across different socio-economic backgrounds. It expects to find out the best predictor in understanding the relationship of parental sport involvement across different socio-economic situation. Methods: Questionnaire survey method was selected and 863 valid questionnaires were collected. The questionnaire content included questions about families' basic information, social stratification, parental physical activity and parental investment in children's sport involvement. Results: When parents in low, middle and high social classes were compared, there were significant differences in parents' levels of physical activity, spiritual support, financial support, opportunities given and daily physical activity (all p < 0.01). Significant correlations between daily physical activity, physical exercise and social stratification were found (p < 0.01). Another significant correlation was found between spiritual and financial support, opportunities given and social stratification (p < 0.01). Parental investment, parents' level of physical activity and physical exercise were the predictive values for understanding children's sport involvement. Conclusion: The higher social stratification, the higher parental physical activity and parental investment will be involved in children's sport. Physical exercise had the highest predictive power as it related to parental investment in children's sports participation.

The Role of Parental Input in the Early Acquisition of Japanese Politeness Distinctions

Japanese polite language (teineigo) varies with the speaker-addressee relationship as well as social norms. Descriptive studies have found that young Japanese children use polite-speech early in development. This claim was experimentally tested in 3- to 6-year-old Japanese children and correct use of polite verb forms was found even in the youngest children. The early acquisition of these verb forms is surprising, because there is a Japanese social norm that parental speech to children is mostly not polite, so it is not clear how children acquire the knowledge of how to use polite forms. To examine this, a large scale corpus analysis of polite language was performed using a probabilistic measure of the intended addressee. We confirmed that parental speech is mostly not polite, but parents also produced a substantial amount of polite language that varied appropriately with addressees and this can help to explain the early use of polite speech in Japanese children under experimental conditions.

The Mandarin ba-construction in school-age heritage speakers and their parental input

Abstract Recent research has identified language development in school-age heritage children as an important yet missing link between child early bilinguals and adult heritage speakers. This study investigates the Mandarin ba-construction ([(NP1)-ba-NP2-VP]) through elicited narration among heritage Mandarin children (n = 27, aged 4–14) and their parents (n = 18) in the UK. The results showed considerable similarities between the children and their parents in a number of key structural properties of the ba-construction. However, the children produced the ba-construction with reduced frequency and in a “heritage variety” with a reduced set of nominal and verbal phrases in NP2 and VP, which is not attested in a group of age-matched Mandarin speakers in Beijing. Additionally, higher frequency of the ba-construction in the heritage children’s production is associated with greater lexical diversity, rather than higher frequency of the ba-construction, in their parental input. We lay out positive aspects of the heritage variety of the ba-construction in sustaining the heritage language in bilingual contexts and consider the different roles of structural frequency and lexical diversity in parental input in maintaining the heritage grammar in late childhood and adolescence.

Child-parent cardiac transference is decreased following disrupted/absent early care.

Parental input shapes youth self-regulation development, and a lack of sensitive caregiving is a risk factor for youth mental health problems. Parents may shape youth regulation through their influence over biological (including neural) and behavioral development during childhood at both micro (moment-to-moment) and macro (global) levels. Prior studies have shown that micro-level parent-child interactions shape youth's biology contributing to youth mental health. However, it remains unclear whether prior disrupted/absent care affects those moment-to-moment parent-youth interactions in ways that increase risk for youth psychopathology. In the current study, we calculated transfer entropy on cardiac data from parent-youth dyads where the youth had either been exposed to disrupted care prior to adoption or not. Transfer Entropy (TE) tracks information flow between two signals, enhancing quantification of directional coupling, allowing for the examination of parent-child and child-parent influences. Using this novel approach, we identified lower cardiac information transfer from youth-to-parents in dyads where the youth had been exposed to disrupted/absent early care. Moreover we showed that the degree to which the parent's physiology changed in response to youth's physiology was negatively related to the youth's mental health, representing a potential pathway for elevated mental health risk in populations exposed to disrupted/absent early care.

Childhood disadvantage, neurocognitive development and neuropsychiatric disorders: Evidence of mechanisms.

Children living in socioeconomically disadvantaged households have excess risks of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric problems. The purpose of this review is to synthesize evidence for mechanisms that may contribute to these excess risks. The majority of the 60 studies included in our review focused on children's neurocognitive development and behavioural problems. About half conducted mediation analyses of factors in the family and neighbourhood environments, including access to resources (e.g. cognitive inputs within the home environment) and exposure to stressors (e.g. negative parenting practices), as well as neurobiological embedding of childhood disadvantage. In addition, many studies conducted moderation analyses of factors that were hypothesized to interact with (i.e. exacerbate or mitigate) the harmful effects of childhood disadvantage. Many of the factors that contribute to the excess risk of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric problems among children in disadvantaged households are potentially modifiable (e.g. cognitively stimulating materials, parental language input, cultural resources, parental stress and psychopathology, negative parenting, neighbourhood violence). If their causality is ultimately established, they could be targets for the prevention and reduction of disparities. The continued search for mechanisms should not detract from work to reduce and hopefully eliminate children's exposure to disadvantage.

Parental Speech and Gesture Input to Girls Versus Boys in Singletons and Twins

Children show sex differences in early speech development, with girls producing a greater number and variety of words at an earlier age than boys (Berglund et al. in Scand J Psychol 46(6): 485–491, 2005)—a pattern that also becomes evident in gesture (Butterworth and Morisette in J Reprod Infant Psychol 14(3): 219–231, 1996). Importantly, parents show variability in how they produce speech when interacting with their singleton sons vs. daughters (i.e., Cherry and Lewis in Dev Psychol 12: 278–282, 1976; Leaper et al. in Dev Psychol 34: 3–27, 1998). However, it is unknown whether the variability in speech input extends to different twin dyads or becomes evident in gesture input. In this study, we examined parental gesture and speech input to 35 singleton (19 boys, 16 girls) and 62 twin (10 boy–boy, 9 girl–girl, and 12 girl–boy dyads) Turkish children (age range = 0;10–3;4) in parent–child interactions. We asked whether there is evidence of sex (girls vs. boys) or group (singletons vs. twins) differences in parents’ speech and gesture production, and whether these differences also become evident in different twin dyads (girl–girl, boy–boy, girl–boy). Our results, based on parent-child interactions, largely showed no evidence of sex or dyad-composition difference in either parent speech or gesture, but evidence of a group difference in gesture, with the parents of singletons providing a greater amount, diversity, and complexity of gestures than parents of twins in their interactions. These results suggest that differences in parent input to singletons vs. twins might become evident initially in gesture.

A Four-Year Longitudinal Comparative Study on the Lexicon Development of Russian and Turkish Heritage Speakers in Germany

Russian and Turkish are the most frequently spoken and intensively investigated heritage languages in Germany, but contrastive research on their development in early childhood is still missing. This longitudinal study compares the trajectories of expressive lexicon development in Russian (n = 70) and Turkish (n = 79) heritage speakers and identifies predictors for their lexicon size at preschool age. Heritage lexicon size was tested with two comparable tests assessing the expressive lexicon at four test points between the mean ages of 3.3 (range: 25–49 months) and 5.6 (range: 54–78 months) years. The influence of language-related factors, such as input quantity, parents’ heritage language proficiency and age of onset (AoO) of German, and other potential predictors, i.e., intelligence and socio-economic status, is evaluated. Results show that the Turkish group’s abilities grow slower but are similar at the last test point. Common predictors for lexicon size are input quantity from siblings and AoO. Group-specific influences are parental input quantity in the Russian group and siblings’ proficiency in the Turkish group. Our findings emphasize the interplay of input quantity and society language AoO for heritage lexicon development. The relevance of our results for the usage-based theory of language acquisition is discussed.

Linking Quality and Quantity of Parental Linguistic Input to Child Language Skills: A Meta-Analysis.

This meta-analysis examined associations between the quantity and quality of parental linguistic input and children's language. Pooled effect size for quality (i.e., vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity; k=35; N=1,958; r=.33) was more robust than for quantity (i.e., number of words/tokens/utterances; k=33; N=1,411; r=.20) of linguistic input. For quality and quantity of parental linguistic input, effect sizes were stronger when input was observed in naturalistic contexts compared to free play tasks. For quality of parental linguistic input, effect sizes also increased as child age and observation length increased. Effect sizes were not moderated by socioeconomic status or child gender. Findings highlight parental linguistic input as a key environmental factor in children's language skills.

Covid-19 shocks to education supply: how 200,000 U.S. households dealt with the sudden shift to distance learning.

Among the extraordinary shocks to household life caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was the sudden shift to distance learning in K-12 schools. Gone were Monday through Friday routines of school day, extracurricular activities, and evening homework; schools scrambled to launch alternative delivery systems, expecting parents to step in and spend significant amounts of time helping children continue to learn. This study examines the sudden shift to distance learning using data from U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Conducted weekly from April through July 2020, the survey tracked COVID-related shocks to employment, health, food and housing security, and education in the U.S. population. We use Pulse data on 200,000 households with K-12 children to examine how school systems shifted, how parents stepped up and spent time helping children learn, how parental time inputs varied with parent education, and how education changes intersected with other pandemic shocks, including job loss and food insecurity. We find that parents and children spent significantly more time in learning activities when their schools provided diversified educational inputs, especially live contact time with teachers; live contact hours also facilitated children learning on their own. Given the type of alternative schooling, less educated parents spent no less time helping children than better educated parents, although they faced significantly more problems with computer and internet access. Thus, parents generally tried to help children continue learning in the pandemic, albeit with potentially wide variation in the resources they could supply to mitigate the drop in learning.

Improving Teen Girls' Skills for Using Electronic Health Information.

Background:In a world increasingly dependent on the Internet for information, it is not surprising that people use the internet to find answers to their health-related questions. Research has shown that teen girls are more likely to search for health information online than boys, but that they do not feel confident in using the information they find.Objective:To address this disparity, teen girls were engaged in the process of developing a teen-friendly, internet-based tool that explains the best way to find, evaluate, and use online health information.Methods:Focus groups were held with girls and their parents to inform the design of the tool. After collaborating with information technology, marketing, and video production teams, a tool was developed consisting of a webpage, videos, and an interactive game. The efficacy and acceptability of the tool were tested among our target demographic through a usability trial.Key Results:Parent and teen focus groups informed the three-step design of the tool. Teen girls reported significantly higher levels of eHealth literacy after using the tool. Dissemination of the tool through a national targeted ad campaign generated web traffic to the tool.Conclusions:An internet-based training tool has been shown to improve teen girls' eHealth literacy. Findings from this developmental study can be used to inform efforts to improve eHealth literacy in adolescent girls. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2021;5(1):e26–e34.]Plain Language Summary:This research study used teen and parent input to help design an internet-based training tool to teach teen girls the best way to use the internet to find health information. Teen girls' ability to find, understand, and evaluate online health information significantly improved after using the tool. The tool was advertised throughout the United States on various social media platforms.

Differential responses to child communicative behavior of parents of toddlers with ASD.

The quality of parent verbal input-diverse vocabulary that is well-matched to the child's developmental level within interactions that are responsive to their interests-has been found to positively impact child language skills. For typically developing (TD) children, there is evidence that more advanced linguistic and social development differentially elicits higher quality parent input, suggesting a bidirectional relationship between parent and child. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if toddlers with ASD also differentially elicit parental verbal input by (1) analyzing the quality of parent input to the communicative behavior of their toddlers with ASD, (2) examining if parents respond differentially to more advanced toddler communicative behavior, as measured by the coordination of multiple communicative behaviors, and (3) exploring the relationship between parental responsiveness to child communicative behaviors and change in child communication and social skills. Participants were 77 toddlers with ASD age 18-39 months and a parent who participated in a larger RCT. Ten-minute parent-toddler interactions were recorded prior to a 12-week intervention. Parent response to child communicative behaviors was coded following each child communicative behavior as no acknowledgment, responsive, directive, or nonverbal acknowledgment. Parent number of different words and difference between parent and child MLU in words were calculated separately for responsive and directive parent utterances. Child growth in language and social skills was measured using the Vineland II Communication and Socialization domain scores, respectively. (1) Parents were largely responsive to their toddler's communication. When being responsive (as opposed to directive), parents used a greater number of different words within utterances that were well-matched to child language; (2) when toddlers coordinated communicative behaviors (versus producing an isolated communicative behavior), parents were more likely to respond and their replies were more likely to be responsive; and (3) parent responsiveness to child coordinated communication was significantly correlated with change in Vineland II Socialization but not Communication. A unique role of gaze coordinated child communication in eliciting responsive parental behaviors and improving growth in child social skills emerged. Our results support a bidirectional process between responsive parent verbal input and the social development of toddlers with ASD, with less sophisticated child communicative behaviors eliciting lower quality parent input.Implications: Our findings highlight the critical role of early parent-mediated intervention for children with ASD generally, and to enhance eye gaze through parent responsivity more specifically.

Is Gender Destiny? Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in India

Many recent studies provide evidence of gender bias against girls in India, for example, in health, education expenditure, breast feeding, and sex selection. In contrast, the gender gap in schooling has narrowed substantially over the decades. Does gender convergence in schooling attainment imply that the girls in the younger generation in India enjoy equal educational opportunities as the boys? To analyze this question, we study intergenerational schooling persistence addressing both empirical and theoretical challenges. We incorporate gender bias against girls in the family, school and labor market in a Becker-Tomes model and derive mobility and investment equations that can be taken to data. Parents may underestimate a girl's ability, expect lower returns, and assign lower welfare weights (“pure son preference”). The model delivers the widely used linear conditional expectation function (CEF) for mobility under constant returns but generates strong predictions: parental bias cannot cause gender gap in relative mobility. With diminishing returns, the CEF is concave, and parental bias affects both relative and absolute mobility. Since coresidency causes severe underestimation of the gender gap, we use data from India Human Development Survey that includes nonresident children and parents. Evidence rejects the linear mobility CEF in favor of a concave relation (both rural and urban). The daughters of uneducated fathers face lower relative and absolute mobility irrespective of rural/urban location. We find gender equality in absolute mobility for the children of college educated fathers in urban areas, but not in villages. Theoretical insights help understand the mechanisms, suggesting underestimation of academic ability and unfavorable school environment for girls. Rural parents exhibit pure son preference. Differences in the incidence of unwanted girls and the impact of parental nonfinancial inputs explain the rural-urban differences. The standard linear model misses important heterogeneity and yields misleading conclusions such as no son preference in rural India.

Multivariate analysis of sediment quality in River Ogbere, Ibadan, South-West Nigeria

Abstract Heavy metals are pollutants of river sediments, and their concentration varies depending on parental material and anthropogenic inputs, thus it is important to distinguish between the natural and anthropogenic inputs. The objective of this study is to use different types of indexes to assess the current pollution status in Ogbere River sediment and select the best index to describe the sediment quality. The indexes used in this study were enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index (Igeo) and principal component analysis (PCA). The PCA has an advantage over other index analyses as it reduces the dimensionality of the data set and thus used to support multivariate cluster analysis. From the study, a total of 12 sediment samples were collected in both seasons across six sampling location and pollution indexes indicated three things: firstly, the metal distribution profile in the sediment showed that the heavy metals analysed were lower than the maximum allowable limits stipulated by Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR); secondly, minor to extremely severe significant levels of enrichment and thirdly, practically uncontaminated to a moderately contaminated degree of contamination in Ogbere River during the study period. The PCA is considered more sensitive in the analysis of benthic changes as well as sediment quality. However, the heavy metal assessment indices are not only used for sediment quality. Biological testing and ecological analysis of existing community related to sediment contamination are further recommended in River Ogbere.

Preschooler’s Lexical Trajectory: The Impact of Parental Input and Linguistic Environment at Home

Children’s English vocabulary acquisition is a process of dynamic and fluid emergence as a result of various stimuli in communicative settings. The paper identifies 5 family variables related to child’s lexical trajectory, namely, the linguistic environment at home, children’s relative exposure to the input, quality of child-directed speech (CDS), frequency of parental input and parent-child interaction. Each family variable contributes uniquely to children’s words learning, among which a highly supportive linguistic learning environment is fundamental for children to accumulate more vocabularies and has a significantly positive impact on children’s vocabulary ability. This paper highlights the importance of targeting children’s learning environment in early years as children’s vocabulary acquisition is a strong predictor of later emergent literacy.

Sleep and neurobehavioral functioning in survivors of pediatric cancer

ObjectivesSleep problems are a common late effect in survivors of pediatric cancer. Growing literature suggests deficits in sleep functioning may be related to more impairing neurobehavioral outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of parent reported sleep concerns in survivors of pediatric cancer, as well as evaluate the relationship between sleep and neurobehavioral functioning utilizing both parent and teacher input. MethodsThe study included parent-teacher dyads of 75 survivors of pediatric cancer between the ages of six and 17 who completed a clinical neuropsychological evaluation with embedded measures of neurobehavioral functioning and sleep, including excessive daytime sleepiness and snoring. Bivariate correlations and multiple linear regressions were conducted to evaluate the relationship between sleep and neurobehavioral functioning. ResultsNo significant difference in parent reported sleep concerns was found with regard to demographic, diagnostic, or treatment variables. Daytime sleepiness was significantly elevated for 28% of the sample; snoring was not identified as a significant concern. Daytime sleepiness was significantly associated with worse neurobehavioral outcomes as reported by parents and teachers, including inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, peer difficulties, anxiety, depression, somatic complaints, and aggressive behaviors. Daytime sleepiness was not significantly related to report of learning problems. ConclusionsResults further support that daytime sleepiness, as reported by parents, impacts approximately one third of survivors of pediatric cancer and is associated with worse neurobehavioral outcomes across home and school environments. As a result, it is vital that sleep functioning is a target of assessment in annual survivorship care. Future longitudinal studies are needed to further delineate the directionality of the sleep–neurobehavioral relationship in survivors.