Behavioral Insights, Maternal Attention, and Early Language Resources for Low Income Infants

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Project Summary / Abstract The birth of a child is a potentially powerful moment for programs to engage with caregivers to support and shape positive parenting practices. Like all parents, low-income parents may be willing and receptive to learning and doing what is best for their infant, but parenting during infancy is especially chaotic and stressful. This presents challenges to conventional forms of outreach and follow through even when parents have good intentions and when resources are publicly available at minimal cost. Using insights from behavioral economics (BE), we test the extent to which limited attention and positive affirmation of motherhood can be favorably directed to toward early language and literacy parenting resources among low income mothers of infants. We apply insights from the framework of behavioral economics—blending the scientific disciplines of conventional economics, cognitive decision making and social psychology—to design and experimentally test a bundle of nested interventions within New York City's Newborn Nurse Home Visiting Program (NVHP) existing delivery system to increase uptake and participation with early language resources and support positive parent-infant interactions. Half of mothers of newborns from the Harlem site receiving NHVP visits will (a) be automatically enrolled in the New York City Talk to Your Baby program and receive personalized reminders and child development tips via text message (to address limited attention); (b) view a video of mothers and infants with a reinforced positive message about motherhood at the second home visit (to inspire positive, empowering, and capable feelings of maternal identity); and, (c) at the infants 4-6 month birthday receive a gift packet with early reading books, prepopulated library card and a residentially tailored map of library locations, local book stores and story hours (making present future rewards, opening channel factors). The other half of mothers of newborns will receive NVHP services and a brochure of early language resources as usual. Our specific aims are to: Aim 1. Test the supplemental impact of behavioral economics (BE) informed interventions on parent uptake and use of New York City's Talk to Your Baby texting program. Aim 2. Assess whether such BE interventions subsequently increase the amount and complexity of parents' language interactions with their infant. Aim 3. Generate evidence of impact of on early language interactions in the homes of low income infants in New York City through new measurement methodologies (self-report measures of language interactions via responses to texts will be validated through naturalistic recordings of actual language that the infant is exposed to in the home environment). This project will garner evidence about whether a bundle of nested behaviorally informed low cost interventions can optimize use and impact of publicly available early language and learning resources—as launched in over 20 cities and localities—during a particularly receptive and malleable period of early childhood brain development.