Tanja Jungmann

Erythropoietin improves neurodevelopmental outcome of extremely preterm infants

Erythropoietin has been reported to possess neuroprotective properties in animal studies. No previous studies have investigated the neurodevelopmental outcome of extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants treated with recombinant human erythropoietin (rEpo) and evaluated it at school age.

How can multimodal cues from child-directed interaction reduce learning complexity in robots?

Robots have to deal with an enormous amount of sensory stimuli. One solution in making sense of them is to enable a robot system to actively search for cues that help structuring the information. Studies with infants reveal that parents support the learning-process by modifying their interaction style, dependent on their childs developmental age. In our study, in which parents demonstrated everyday actions to their preverbal children (8–11 months old), our aim was to identify objective parameters for multimodal action modification. Our results reveal two action parameters being modified in adult–child interaction: roundness and pace. Furthermore, we found that language has the power to help children structuring actions sequences by synchrony and emphasis. These insights are discussed with respect to the built-in attention architecture of a socially interactive robot, which enables it to understand demonstrated actions. Our algorithmic approach towards automatically detecting the task structure in child-designed input demonstrates the potential impact of insights from developmental learning on robotics. The presented findings pave the way to automatically detect when to imitate in a demonstration task.

Long‐term cognitive outcomes of extremely low‐birth‐weight infants: the influence of the maternal educational background

Aim:  The purpose of the present contribution is to analyse the relationships between perinatal risk factors, social parameters and neurodevelopmental outcomes in extremely low‐birth‐weight (ELBW) children up to the age of 10–13 years.

Effects of Home Visitation on Maternal Competencies, Family Environment, and Child Development: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Based on the US Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program, the German home visiting program “Pro Kind” offered support for socially and financially disadvantaged first-time mothers from pregnancy until the children’s second birthday. A multi-centered, longitudinal randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted to assess its effectiveness on mothers and children. A total of 755 women with multiple risk factors were recruited, 394 received regular home visits (treatment group), while 361 only had access to standard community services (control group). Program influences on family environment (e.g., quality of home, social support), maternal competencies (e.g., maternal self-efficacy, empathy, parenting style), and child development (e.g., cognitive and motor development) were assessed from mothers’ program intake in pregnancy to children’s second birthday based on self-reports in regular interviews and developmental tests. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) models showed small, but significant positive treatment effects on parental self-efficacy, and marginally significant effects on social support, and knowledge on child rearing. Maternal stress, self-efficacy, and feelings of attachment in the TG tend to show a more positive development over time. Subgroup effects were found for high-risk mothers in the TG, who reported more social support over time and, generally, had children with higher developmental scores compared to their CG counterparts. Post hoc analyses of implementation variables revealed the quality of the helping relationship as a significant indicator of treatment effects. Results are discussed in terms of implementation and public policy differences between NFP and Pro Kind.

What relates to paternal feelings and competencies? A structural equation model

In the present study, we integrated cross-sectional findings on the relation of early paternal feelings and competencies against the background of a theoretical model on determinants of parenting in a sample of 104 socially disadvantaged first-time parents at 6 months postpartum. Participants reported about mental health characteristics, partnership satisfaction, parental self-efficacy, and attachment feelings. Results indicate a reasonable fit of the proposed model, with interrelations between maternal mental health, paternal partnership satisfaction, and mental health. Furthermore, fathers’ partnership satisfaction positively correlates with paternal feelings and competencies. Our results underline the role of fathers’ partnership satisfaction and mental health for his parenting competencies at 6 months postpartum. The study represents a useful starting point for future longitudinal research on fathering and the unique father–infant relation of fathers within the first year postpartum.

Evaluating the effects of a targeted home visiting program on maternal and child health outcomes

We evaluate the effects of home visiting targeted towards disadvantaged first-time mothers on maternal and child health outcomes. Our analysis exploits a randomized controlled trial and combines rich longitudinal survey data with unique administrative health data. In a context in which the target group has comprehensive health care access, we find no effects of home visiting on most types of health utilization, health behaviors, and physical health measures. However, the intervention has a positive effect on some maternal mental health outcomes, reducing depression reported in the survey data by eleven percentage points and prescription of psycholeptics recorded in the administrative data by seven percentage points.