TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of a responsiveness-focused intervention in family child care homes on children's executive function
AU - Merz, Emily C.
AU - Landry, Susan H.
AU - Johnson, Ursula Y.
AU - Williams, Jeffrey M.
AU - Jung, Kwanghee
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the United States (U.S.) Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families ( 90SC0041 ) and the U.S. Institute of Education Sciences ( R32B110007 ) to the Children’s Learning Institute, University of Texas Health Science Center. In addition, a U.S. National Institute of Mental Health training grant ( T32MH13043 ) supported Emily Merz. The authors are grateful to the child care providers, parents, and children who participated in this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2016/3/1
Y1 - 2016/3/1
N2 - Caregiver responsiveness has been theorized and found to support children's early executive function (EF) development. This study examined the effects of an intervention that targeted family child care provider responsiveness on children's EF. Family child care providers were randomly assigned to one of two intervention groups or a control group. An intervention group that received a responsiveness-focused online professional development course and another intervention group that received this online course plus weekly mentoring were collapsed into one group because they did not differ on any of the outcome variables. Children (N= 141) ranged in age from 2.5 to 5 years (mean age = 3.58 years; 52% female). At pretest and posttest, children completed delay inhibition tasks (gift delay-wrap, gift delay-bow) and conflict EF tasks (bear/dragon, dimensional change card sort), and parents reported on the children's level of attention problems. Although there were no main effects of the intervention on children's EF, there were significant interactions between intervention status and child age for delay inhibition and attention problems. The youngest children improved in delay inhibition and attention problems if they were in the intervention rather than the control group, whereas older children did not. These results suggest that improving family child care provider responsive behaviors may facilitate the development of certain EF skills in young preschool-age children.
AB - Caregiver responsiveness has been theorized and found to support children's early executive function (EF) development. This study examined the effects of an intervention that targeted family child care provider responsiveness on children's EF. Family child care providers were randomly assigned to one of two intervention groups or a control group. An intervention group that received a responsiveness-focused online professional development course and another intervention group that received this online course plus weekly mentoring were collapsed into one group because they did not differ on any of the outcome variables. Children (N= 141) ranged in age from 2.5 to 5 years (mean age = 3.58 years; 52% female). At pretest and posttest, children completed delay inhibition tasks (gift delay-wrap, gift delay-bow) and conflict EF tasks (bear/dragon, dimensional change card sort), and parents reported on the children's level of attention problems. Although there were no main effects of the intervention on children's EF, there were significant interactions between intervention status and child age for delay inhibition and attention problems. The youngest children improved in delay inhibition and attention problems if they were in the intervention rather than the control group, whereas older children did not. These results suggest that improving family child care provider responsive behaviors may facilitate the development of certain EF skills in young preschool-age children.
KW - Attention control
KW - Caregiver responsiveness
KW - Early childhood
KW - Inhibitory control
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84953713422&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecresq.2015.10.003
DO - 10.1016/j.ecresq.2015.10.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84953713422
SN - 0885-2006
VL - 34
SP - 128
EP - 139
JO - Early Childhood Research Quarterly
JF - Early Childhood Research Quarterly
ER -