Parental developmental screening with CARE: A pilot hybrid assessment and intervention with vulnerable families in
1Department of Developmental and Educative Psychology, Universidad de la Sabana, Chía, Colombia.
Insights
The CARE booklet intervention improved early childhood development and narrative skills in vulnerable Colombian children, offering a promising approach to reduce developmental delays in low-resource settings.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Public Health Interventions
- Early Childhood Education
Background:
- Poverty and resource scarcity pose significant risks to child development in low- and middle-income countries.
- Effective interventions to mitigate developmental delays, such as parent-focused reading programs, are not widely accessible to vulnerable families.
- Early identification and support are crucial for children to reach their developmental potential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the efficacy of the CARE booklet intervention for parental use in developmental screening of young children (36-60 months).
- To assess the intervention's impact on reducing developmental delays and enhancing language-related skills in children from low-income backgrounds.
- To explore the potential of accessible parent-training tools in improving child developmental outcomes.
Main Methods:
- A pilot Quasi-Randomised Control Trial design was employed with 50 participants from vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods in Colombia.
- The study compared a CARE intervention group receiving parent training with a control group.
- Data analysis involved ANCOVA to assess the intervention's effect on developmental status and narrative skills, controlling for pre-measurements and sociodemographic variables.
Main Results:
- The CARE booklet intervention significantly enhanced children's developmental status, specifically reducing developmental screening delay items (p = .002).
- The intervention also led to improvements in narrative skills, as indicated by higher narrative devices scores (p = .041).
- Statistical analyses controlled for baseline measurements and sociodemographic factors, strengthening the findings.
Conclusions:
- The CARE booklet intervention demonstrates efficacy in improving developmental and narrative skills in young children from vulnerable, low-income settings.
- This approach offers a scalable and accessible method for early developmental screening and support, potentially mitigating developmental delays.
- Future research should consider larger sample sizes and the long-term effects, especially in light of disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract:
Poverty and scarcity of resources make children in low-and-middle-income countries at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. Despite a near-universal interest in risk reduction, effective interventions like enhancing reading skills in parents to diminish developmental delay remain elusive for the great majority of vulnerable families. We undertook a efficacy study for parental use of a booklet called CARE for developmental screening of children between 36 to 60 months old (M = 44.0, SD = 7.5). All participants (N = 50), lived in vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods in Colombia. The study followed a pilot Quasi-Randomised Control Trial design (i.e., control group participants assigned based on non-random criteria) of parent training with a CARE intervention group compared to a control group. Data was analyzed using two-way ANCOVA for sociodemographic variables' interaction with follow-up results and one-way ANCOVA to evaluate the relations between the intervention and post-measurement of developmental delays and cautions and other language related-skills outcomes, while controlling for pre-measurements. These analyses indicated that the CARE booklet intervention enhanced children's developmental status and narrative skills (developmental screening delay items, F(1, 47) = 10.45, p = .002, partial η2 = .182; narrative devices scores, F(1, 17) = 4.87, p = .041, partial η2 = .223). Several limitations (e.g., sample size) and possible implications for the analysis of children's developmental potential are discussed and considered for future research, along with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the closure of preschools and community care centers.
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