Diane L. Putnick

Cognitive and socioemotional caregiving in developing countries.

Enriching caregiving practices foster the course and outcome of child development. This study examined 2 developmentally significant domains of positive caregiving-cognitive and socioemotional-in more than 127,000 families with under-5 year children from 28 developing countries. Mothers varied widely in cognitive and socioemotional caregiving and engaged in more socioemotional than cognitive activities. More than half of mothers played with their children and took them outside, but only a third or fewer read books and told stories to their children. The GDP of countries related to caregiving after controlling for life expectancy and education. The majority of mothers report that they do not leave their under-5s alone. Policy and intervention recommendations are elaborated.

Mother-Child Emotional Availability in Ecological Perspective: Three Countries, Two Regions, Two Genders.

This study used a cross-national framework to examine country, region, and gender differences in emotional availability (EA), a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Altogether 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. mothers and their daughters and sons from both rural and metropolitan areas took part in home observations when the children were 20 months old. In terms of country, Italian mothers were more sensitive and optimally structuring, and Italian children were more responsive and involving, than Argentine and U.S. dyads. In terms of region, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and boys from metropolitan areas were more responsive than boys from rural areas. In terms of gender, mothers of girls were more sensitive and optimally structuring than mothers of boys, and daughters were more responsive and involving than sons. Understanding how country, region, and gender influence EA exposes forces that shape child development, parent-infant interaction, and family systems.

Child Development in Developing Countries: Introduction and Methods.

The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) is a nationally representative, internationally comparable household survey implemented to examine protective and risk factors of child development in developing countries around the world. This introduction describes the conceptual framework, nature of the MICS3, and general analytic plan of articles in this Special Section. The articles that follow describe the situations of children with successive foci on nutrition, parenting, discipline and violence, and the home environment. They address 2 common questions: How do developing and underresearched countries in the world vary with respect to these central indicators of childrens development? How do key indicators of national development relate to child development in each of these substantive areas? The Special Section concludes with policy implications from the international findings.

A bilingual-monolingual comparison of young children's vocabulary size: evidence from comprehension and production

It is often assumed that young bilinguals are lexically delayed in comparison to monolinguals. A comprehensive comparison of comprehension and production vocabulary in 31 firstborn bilingual and 30 matched monolingual children fails to find empirical foundation for this assumption. Several raters completed Dutch and French adaptations of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories for children aged 13 and 20 months. At 13 months, bilinguals understood more words than monolinguals; at 20 months, monolinguals knew more Dutch words than bilinguals (combining comprehension and production). There were no group differences for word production or for Dutch word comprehension. Both groups understood and produced the same number of lexicalized meanings; ratios of word comprehension to word production did not differ; inter-individual variation was similar. This study underscores the importance of conducting bilingual-monolingual comparisons with matched groups and suggests that if individual bilingual children appear to be slow in early vocabulary development, reasons other than their bilingualism should be investigated.

Agreement in Mother and Father Acceptance-Rejection, Warmth, and Hostility/Rejection/ Neglect of Children Across Nine Countries

The authors assessed whether mothers’ and fathers’ self-reports of acceptance-rejection, warmth, and hostility/rejection/neglect (HRN) of their preadolescent children differ cross-nationally and relative to the gender of the parent and child in 10 communities in 9 countries, including China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States (N = 998 families). Mothers and fathers in all countries reported a high degree of acceptance and warmth, and a low degree of HRN, but countries also varied. Mothers reported greater acceptance of children than fathers in China, Italy, Sweden, and the United States, and these effects were accounted for by greater self-reported warmth in mothers than in fathers in China, Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand and less HRN in mothers than in fathers in Sweden. Fathers reported greater warmth than mothers in Kenya. Mother and father acceptance-rejection were moderately correlated. Relative levels of mother and father acceptance and rejection appear to be country specific.

Emotional Availability in Mother-Child Dyads: Short-Term Stability and Continuity From Variable-Centered and Person-Centered Perspectives

Emotional availability (EA) is a prominent index of socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Can basic psychometric properties of EA be looked at from both variable (scale) and person (cluster) points of view in individuals and in dyads? Is EA stable and continuous over a short period of time? This methodological study shows significant short-term stability and continuity in EA as measured with individual and dyadic Emotional Availability Scales and in clusters of individuals and dyads on EA scores in 52 mothers and their 5-month-olds observed twice at home. This work documents psychometric properties of the emotional availability construct from both variable and person orientations.

Housing Quality and Access to Material and Learning Resources Within the Home Environment in Developing Countries

This study examined home environment conditions (housing quality, material resources, formal and informal learning materials) and their relations with the Human Development Index (HDI) in 28 developing countries. Home environment conditions in these countries varied widely. The quality of housing and availability of material resources at home were consistently tied to HDI; the availability of formal and informal learning materials a little less so. Gross domestic product (GDP) tended to show a stronger independent relation with housing quality and material resources than life expectancy and education. Formal learning resources were independently related to the GDP and education indices, and informal learning resources were not independently related to any constituent indices of the overall HDI.

Maternal gestational zinc supplementation does not influence multiple aspects of child development at 54 mo of age in Peru

BACKGROUND Zinc is necessary for central nervous system development, and maternal zinc status has been associated with developmental differences in offspring. OBJECTIVE The objective was to evaluate differences in cognitive, social, and behavioral function in Peruvian children at 54 mo of age whose mothers participated during pregnancy in a zinc supplementation trial. DESIGN We attempted to follow up 205 children from a prenatal zinc supplementation trial and present data on 184 (90%) children-86 whose mothers took 25 mg zinc/d in addition to 60 mg iron and 250 microg folic acid and 98 whose mothers took iron and folic acid only. Following a standardized protocol, we assessed childrens intelligence, language and number skills, representational ability, interpersonal understanding, and adaptive behavior and behavioral adjustment. We also assessed aspects of the mother (eg, age, education, verbal intelligence, stresses, and social support in parenting) and the home environment [HOME (Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment) inventory]. RESULTS No differences were observed between any of the tests used to characterize cognitive, social, or behavioral development (P > 0.05). Child sex, parity, or treatment compliance did not modify the effects of supplementation on any outcomes. CONCLUSION The addition of zinc to prenatal supplements did not influence developmental outcomes in Peruvian children when assessed at 4.5 y of age.

Perceived mother and father acceptance-rejection predict four unique aspects of child adjustment across nine countries.

BACKGROUND It is generally believed that parental rejection of children leads to child maladaptation. However, the specific effects of perceived parental acceptance-rejection on diverse domains of child adjustment and development have been incompletely documented, and whether these effects hold across diverse populations and for mothers and fathers are still open questions. METHODS This study assessed childrens perceptions of mother and father acceptance-rejection in 1,247 families from China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States as antecedent predictors of later internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, school performance, prosocial behavior, and social competence. RESULTS Higher perceived parental rejection predicted increases in internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and decreases in school performance and prosocial behavior across 3 years controlling for within-wave relations, stability across waves, and parental age, education, and social desirability bias. Patterns of relations were similar across mothers and fathers and, with a few exceptions, all nine countries. CONCLUSIONS Childrens perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection have small but nearly universal effects on multiple aspects of their adjustment and development regardless of the familys country of origin.

Stability of Language in Childhood: A Multiage, Multidomain, Multimeasure, and Multisource Study.

The stability of language across childhood is traditionally assessed by exploring longitudinal relations between individual language measures. However, language encompasses many domains and varies with different sources (child speech, parental report, experimenter assessment). This study evaluated individual variation in multiple age-appropriate measures of child language derived from multiple sources and stability between their latent variables in 192 young children across more than 2 years. Structural equation modeling demonstrated the loading of multiple measures of child language from different sources on single latent variables of language at ages 20 months and 48 months. A large stability coefficient (r = .84) obtained between the 2 language latent variables. This stability obtained even when accounting for family socioeconomic status, maternal verbal intelligence, education, speech, tendency to respond in a socially desirable fashion, and child social competence. Stability was also equivalent for children in diverse childcare situations and for girls and boys. Across age, from the beginning of language acquisition to just before school entry, aggregating multiple age-appropriate methods and measures at each age and multiple reporters, children show a strong stability of individual differences in general language development.