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Extensive evidence and theory suggest that the development of motor skills during infancy and early childhood initiates a "developmental cascade" for cognitive abilities, such as reading and math. Motor skills are closely connected with the development of spatial cognition, an ability that supports deductive reasoning. Despite the linkage between motor skills and spatial cognition, and spatial cognition with deductive reasoning, no research has explored the developmental connection between early motor skills and reasoning ability, a plausible pathway through which the developmental cascade operates. Drawing data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (N = 1,233; 95% British, 5% other race/ethnicity; 54% male, 46% female; 7% low income, 80% middle income, 12% high income), this study investigated whether there was a relationship between gross and fine motor skills in infancy (22 months of age) and early childhood (42 months of age) and visuospatial deductive reasoning in adolescence (at 10 and 16 years of age). Results indicated that fine but not gross motor skills during early childhood positively predicted reasoning in adolescence. Critically, the fine motor-reasoning association mediated the previously observed link between early fine motor skills and adolescent reading and math ability. These results deepen our understanding of developmental cascade theory and mental model theory by identifying visuospatial reasoning (i.e., mental modeling) as a potential mechanism through which motor skills initiate cognitive development and academic success in reading and math. These findings also highlight the importance of early intervention programs targeting motor skills and illuminate the impact of those interventions on later cognitive and academic skills.

Creating opportunities for people to achieve socioeconomic mobility is a widely shared societal goal. Paradoxically, however, achieving this goal can pose a threat to high-socioeconomic-status (SES) people as they look to maintain their privileged positions in society for both them and their children. Two studies evaluate whether this threat manifests as "opportunity hoarding" in which high-SES parents adopt attitudes and behaviors aimed at shoring up their families' access to valuable educational and economic resources. The current paper provides converging evidence for this hypothesis across two studies conducted with 2,557 American parents. An initial correlational study demonstrated that believing that socioeconomic mobility is possible was associated with high-SES parents being more inclined to attempt to secure valuable educational and economic resources for their children, even when doing so came at the cost of low-SES families. Specifically, high-SES parents with stronger beliefs in socioeconomic mobility exhibited decreased support for redistributive policies and viewed engaging in discrete behaviors that would unfairly advantage their children (e.g., allowing them to misrepresent their identities on school and job applications) as more acceptable relative to both low-SES parents with similar beliefs and high-SES parents who were less optimistic about socioeconomic mobility. A subsequent experimental study established these relationships causally by comparing parents' responses to different types of socioeconomic mobility. Together, the current findings merge insights across psychology and economics to deepen understandings of the processes through which societal inequities emerge and persist, especially during times of apparently abundant opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies show large differences between economically advantaged and disadvantaged parents in the quality and quantity of their engagement in young children's development. This "parenting gap" may account for a substantial portion of the gap in children's early cognitive skills. However, researchers know little about whether the socioeconomic gap in parenting has increased over time. The present study investigates this question, focusing on income- and education-based gaps in parents' engagement in cognitively stimulating activities with preschool-aged children. We draw on data from four national studies conducted over 25 years. We found a decrease in income-based gaps in children's book ownership and library attendance but increasing income-based gaps for several other parent behaviors, including reading and telling stories to children and teaching children letters, words, and numbers. Income-based gaps in children's participation in out-of-home cultural activities also increased. Results for education-based gaps were similar. These gaps largely arose from top-income families pulling away from their middle- and low-income counterparts.

The present study examines variation in the effect of birth weight on children's early cognitive and socioemotional outcomes by family socioeconomic status (SES). It is hypothesized that not only will lower birth weight children display worse cognitive and socioemotional outcomes prior to school entry, as prior research has found, but that effects will be stronger for lower-SES children. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Birth Cohort, the study compares the age 4 outcomes of twins discordant for birth weight (N ~ 1,400). Twin fixed-effects models are run on the full twin sample and separately for low- and high-SES children. Results support the study's hypotheses, suggesting that socioeconomic risk accentuates the effects of birth weight on early development.

Children's math learning (N = 217; M[subscript age] = 4.87 years; 63% European American, 96% college-educated families) from an intelligent character game was examined via social meaningfulness (parasocial relationships [PSRs]) and social contingency (parasocial interactions, e.g., math talk). In three studies (data collected in the DC area: 12/2015-10/2017), children's parasocial relationships and math talk with the intelligent character predicted quicker, more accurate math responses during virtual game play. Children performed better on a math transfer task with physical objects when exposed to an embodied character (Study 2), and when the character used socially contingent replies, which was mediated by math talk (Study 3). Results suggest that children's parasocial relationships and parasocial interactions with intelligent characters provide new frontiers for 21st century learning.

Rising rates of nonmarital childbirth in the United States have resulted in a new family type, the fragile family. Such families, which include cohabiting couples as well as single mothers, experience significantly higher rates of poverty and material hardship than their married counterparts. Ariel Kalil and Rebecca Ryan summarize the economic challenges facing mothers in fragile families and describe the resources, both public and private, that help them meet these challenges. The authors explain that the economic fragility of these families stems from both mothers' and fathers' low earnings, which result from low education levels, as well as from physical, emotional, and mental health problems. Mothers in fragile families make ends meet in many ways. The authors show that various public programs, particularly those that provide in-kind assistance, do successfully lessen economic hardship in fragile families. Single mothers also turn to private sources of support--friends, family, boyfriends--for cash and in-kind assistance. But though these private safety nets are essential to many mothers' economic survival, according to the authors, private safety nets are not always consistent and dependable. Thus, assistance from private sources may not fundamentally improve mothers' economic circumstances. Policy makers, say Kalil and Ryan, must recognize that with rates of nonmarital childbirth at their current level, and potentially rising still, the fragile family is likely an enduring fixture in this country. It is thus essential to strengthen policies that both support these families' economic self-sufficiency and alleviate their hardship during inevitable times of economic distress. The most important first step, they say, is to strengthen the public safety net, especially such in-kind benefits as food stamps, Medicaid, housing, and child care. A next step would be to bolster community-based programs that can provide private financial support, such as emergency cash assistance, child care, and food aid, when mothers cannot receive it from their own private networks. (Contains 1 figure, 2 tables and 70 endnotes.)

Although voluminous research has linked nonresident fatherhood to riskier sexual behavior in adolescence, including earlier sexual debut, neither the causality of that link nor the mechanism accounting for it has been well-established. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979--the Young Adult Survey (CNLSY-YA), the present study addresses both questions by comparing the sexual development of siblings discordant for age at father departure from the home and examining results across behavioral (age at first intercourse), biological (pubertal timing), and cognitive (attitudes about childbearing and marriage) sexual outcomes (N = 5,542). Findings indicate that nonresident fatherhood, beginning either at birth or during middle childhood, leads to an earlier sexual debut for girls, but not for boys, an effect likely explained by weak parental monitoring rather than an accelerated reproductive strategy.

The evidence to date on the federal child-care subsidy program's effect on preschool child-care quality is mixed. However, an as-yet untested outcome of subsidy receipt is subsequent child-care choice. Specifically, it is possible that subsidy receipt in toddlerhood increases the likelihood of attending other publicly funded preschool programs--Head Start and public pre-k--that provide the highest quality care available to low-income families. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n ˜ 2,100; approximately 2 years old), this study finds that subsidy receipt during toddlerhood predicts greater use of the other forms of publicly funded care in the preschool year, although only if the earlier subsidy is used in a center. These results highlight a previously unconsidered potential benefit of the subsidy program.

Most children in the U.S. today will experience one or more changes in family structure. The present study explores the implications of this trend for child development by investigating the conditions under which family structure changes matter most to child well-being. Using data from the Maternal and Child Supplement of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,492), it estimates how changes in family structure experienced during 4 different developmental periods relate to concurrent and subsequent changes in children's behavioral trajectories. We estimate associations separately for children born to married and unwed parents to determine whether family instability has different associations with children's behavior across policy-relevant family types. Results indicate that changes in family structure during the first 3 years of life predict children's behavioral development more consistently than later changes, changes into a single-parent family have different implications for children's development than changes into a blended family, and changes in family structure matter more for children born to married parents than children born to unwed parents.

The federal child-care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education, but little is known about whether it increases low-income children's access to higher quality child care. This study used newly available nationally representative data on 4-year-old children (N = 750) to investigate whether subsidy receipt elevates child-care quality. Results indicate that subsidy recipients use "higher" quality care compared to nonrecipients who use no other publicly funded care, but "lower" quality care compared to nonrecipients who instead use Head Start or public pre-k. Findings suggest that subsidies may have the potential to enhance care quality but that parents who use subsidies are not accessing the highest quality care available to low-income families. (Contains 5 tables.)

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, the present study tested whether the benefits of a marital birth for early child development diminish as parents' risk of having a nonmarital birth increases (N = 2,285). It was hypothesized that a child's likelihood of being born to unmarried parents is partly a function of father characteristics that predict his capacity to promote child development. Results partially supported hypothesis. A positive association emerged between parental marriage and cognitive outcomes at age 3 only for children whose parents were likely to be married at the child's birth, suggesting average differences between children in married and unmarried families may overestimate the benefit of marriage in subpopulations most impacted by nonmarital birth.

In 2008, the federal government allotted $7 billion in child care subsidies to low-income families through the state-administered Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), now the government's largest child care program (US DHHS, 2008). Although subsidies reduce costs for families and facilitate parental employment, it is unclear how they impact the quality of care families purchase. This study investigates the impact of government subsidization on parents' selection of child care quality using multivariate regression and propensity score matching approaches to account for differential selection into subsidy receipt and care arrangements. Data were drawn from the Child Care Supplement to the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (CCS-FFCWS), conducted in 2002 and 2003 in 14 of the 20 FFCWS cities when focal children were 3 years old (N = 456). Our results indicate that families who used subsidies chose higher quality care than comparable mothers who did not use subsidies, but only because subsidy recipients were more likely to use center-based care. Subgroup analyses revealed that families using subsidies purchased "higher"-quality home-based care but "lower"-quality center-based care than comparable non-recipients. Findings suggest that child care subsidies may serve as more than a work support for low-income families by enhancing the quality of nonmaternal care children experience but that this effect is largely attributable to recipients' using formal child care arrangements (versus kith and kin care) more often than non-recipients.

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study (N = 1,162) and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (N = 1,308), we estimate associations between material and instrumental support available to low-income mothers and young children's socioemotional well-being. In multivariate OLS models, we find mothers' available support is negatively associated with children's behavior problems and positively associated with prosocial behavior in both data sets; associations between available support and children's internalizing and prosocial behaviors attenuate but remain robust in residualized change models. Overall, results support the hypothesis that the availability of a private safety net is positively associated with children's socioemotional adjustment.

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we examined patterns of nonresident father involvement 1 and 3 years after a nonmarital birth (N = 893). Cluster analyses were used to determine patterns of involvement across different father behaviors. About half of fathers displayed low involvement when children were 1 and 3 years old, one fourth of fathers maintained high involvement, and equal remaining proportions increased or decreased involvement over time. Multinomial logistic analyses indicated that better relationships between parents were associated with consistently high versus low involvement. Better relationships with each others' extended family also predicted remaining highly involved and increasing involvement over time. Parents' romantic relationship status was closely associated with patterns of involvement.

Using data from the Child Care Supplement to the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we test associations between the quality of child care and state child care policies. These data, which include observations of child care and interviews with care providers and mothers for 777 children across 14 states, allow for comparisons across a broader range of policy regimes and care settings than earlier research on this topic. Using multilevel linear and logistic models, we found that more generous subsidy policies (that is, greater investment, higher income eligibility) were positively associated with the quality of care in nonprofit child care centers, as well as with the use of center care. The stringency of regulations (that is, teacher education requirements, teacher-child ratios/thresholds) was also associated with both quality and type of care, but in more complex ways. Higher teacher training requirements were positively associated with the quality of both family child care and nonprofit centers, while more stringent regulations decreased the number of children attending center care. No links were found between state policies and the quality of for-profit center care. The implications for policy makers, advocates, and policy analysts are discussed. (Contains 10 footnotes and 5 tables.)

Few studies of parenting have considered the possibility that the association between one parent's supportive parenting and a child's early cognition is moderated by the other parent's supportiveness. We test this proposition using a low-income sample of coresident couples. In addition, we cross-classify parents within couples according to their parenting behaviors to test for homogamy. Mothers and fathers were videotaped during separate free-play dyadic interactions with their 2-year-old child, and each parent's behavior was coded according to six scales. K-means cluster analysis was used to describe each parent's pattern of parenting behaviors. Parents were then cross-classified within couples by pattern. There was mixed evidence of homogamous parenting styles within couples. After parents were consolidated into four primary pairings, children in each of these pairings were compared on age 5 math and language scores. Children with two supportive parents scored highest, while those with two unsupportive parents scored lowest. Among children with one supportive parent, the sex of that parent was inconsequential. There were no significant interactions between maternal and paternal supportiveness on either math or language. Thus, it appears that in this low-income sample the combined effects of maternal and paternal supportiveness are additive.