Journal article
Towards a dimensional model of risk and protective factors influencing children’s early cognitive, social and emotional development during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Abstract:
- Variation in infants’ home environment is implicated in their cognitive and psycho-social development. The pandemic has intensified variations in home environments through exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities, and increasing psychological stressors for some families. This study investigates the effects of parental (predominantly maternal) mental health, enriching activities and screen use on 280 24- to 52-month-olds’ executive functions, internalising and externalising problems, and pro-social behaviour; with socioeconomic status and social support as contextual factors. Our results indicate that aspects of the home environment are differentially associated with children’s cognitive and psycho-social development. Parents who experienced sustained mental distress during the pandemic tended to report higher child externalising and internalising problems, and executive function difficulties at follow-up. Children who spent more time engaged in enriching activities with their parents showed stronger executive functions and social competence six months later. Screen use levels during the first year of the pandemic were not associated with outcomes. To mitigate the risk of persistent negative effects for this ‘pandemic generation’ of infants, our study highlights the importance of supporting parents’ mental health. As our results demonstrate the impact of social support on mental health, investing in support services and interventions promoting building support networks are likely to be beneficial.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.1MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1111/infa.12495
Authors
- Publisher:
- Wiley
- Journal:
- Infancy More from this journal
- Volume:
- 28
- Issue:
- 1
- Pages:
- 158-186
- Publication date:
- 2022-08-22
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-07-21
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1532-7078
- ISSN:
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1525-0008
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1272459
- Local pid:
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pubs:1272459
- Deposit date:
-
2022-08-04
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Hendry et al
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- © 2022 The Authors. Infancy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Congress of Infant Studies. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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