Parent Engagement and Child Learning Birth to Five

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study will investigate the effects of a comprehensive intervention that integrates parent engagement and relationship components into a community-based early education program for children aged 0-5. It integrates a strong conceptual basis focusing on the context of dose relationships, and innovative service delivery models of consultation (triadic, McCollum & Yates, 1994; and conjoint, Sheridan, Kratochwill, & Bergan, 1996) in an intervention that addresses both child learning and parent engagement. The objective of this application is to carefully evaluate the overall benefits of a multicomponent child- and parent-focused intervention that addresses both home and center/school environments, and is designed to improve the skills of intervention agents to increase early and sustained parent engagement across multiple social and learning contexts. It includes the development of relationships within the home system (i.e., between the parent and child) and continued engagement in the child's learning and performance as s/he enters formal schooling environments. Specific research aims are to: (1) evaluate the effects of an innovative, comprehensive service delivery system on child cognitive, behavioral, and socioemotional outcomes, in comparison to the present conventional system for children under 5 years of age; (2) assess the impact of the proposed comprehensive intervention on parental engagement (i.e., warmth/sensitivity, support for child's autonomy, and active participation in learning and literacy); and (3) evaluate the extent to which child outcomes are mediated by changes in parental engagement. To address the extent to which children's cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral functioning and parent engagement can be enhanced by the proposed intervention, we plan a randomized design to evaluate its impact on key outcomes predictive of school success. Additional analyses will specifically examine: (1) what child and family factors modify the intervention; (2) what components of the intervention, especially its timing at the ages of 0-3 versus 3-5, affect the outcome; and (3) the longitudinal pattern of change within each child. The approach is designed to advance the research base from one that focuses simply on "child readiness" for school to one that addresses "parent and child readiness" to engage in schooling across the early childhood spectrum and transitions across contexts. We plan to model the between-groups and within-child trajectories to better understand the timing and nature of changes indicating school readiness. Outcomes will be measured through standardized, validated instruments and observations of parent-child relationships.