The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

The key to improving young children’s vocabulary and math skills may lie in changing their parents’ beliefs. We describe these findings in an article published in October 2021 in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Communications.

When we measured parental beliefs about child development among 479 parents of newborns living in the Chicago area, a striking pattern emerged: Better educated parents were significantly more likely than parents with lower levels of education to believe that activities such as telling stories to their children, playing with them and spending time having conversations with them affect child development. We call such activities “parental investments”.

To understand how socioeconomic differences in these beliefs may drive inequality in children’s skills, we designed two interventions among low-income families in the Chicago area. Both intervention programs promote language-rich interactions between caregivers and children.

Read more at The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/how-changing-parental-beliefs-can-build-stronger-vocabulary-and-math-skills-for-young-children-171578

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