Parenting Predictors of Delay Inhibition in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Preschoolers

Abstract

This study examined longitudinal associations between specific parenting factors and delay inhibition in socioeconomically disadvantaged preschoolers. At Time 1, parents and 2- to 4-year-old children (mean age = 3.21 years; N = 247) participated in a videotaped parent-child free play session, and children completed delay inhibition tasks (gift delay-wrap, gift delay-bow, and snack delay tasks). Three months later, at Time 2, children completed the same set of tasks. Parental responsiveness was coded from the parent-child free play sessions, and parental directive language was coded from transcripts of a subset of 127 of these sessions. Structural equation modeling was used, and covariates included age, gender, language skills, parental education, and Time 1 delay inhibition. Results indicated that in separate models, Time 1 parental directive language was significantly negatively associated with Time 2 delay inhibition, and Time 1 parental responsiveness was significantly positively associated with Time 2 delay inhibition. When these parenting factors were entered simultaneously, Time 1 parental directive language significantly predicted Time 2 delay inhibition whereas Time 1 parental responsiveness was no longer significant. Findings suggest that parental language that modulates the amount of autonomy allotted the child may be an important predictor of early delay inhibition skills.

The role of father parenting in children’s school readiness: A longitudinal follow-up.

“…The first main finding was that father autonomy support at age 3 predicted child school readiness at age 5, similar to previous findings regarding the importance of mothers for preschool children’s cognitive development (e.g. Devine et al, 2016; Merz et al, 2015; Razza & Raymond, 2013). Also, the effect of early father autonomy support on later child school readiness was mediated by child language.…”

Disentangling the Influence of Socioeconomic Risks on Children's Early Self‐Control

“…We expect the modest indirect effects reported via maternal strain to increase in magnitude if additional aspects of family and parental functioning are included. In particular, parenting has been linked to self‐control in multiple samples with effect sizes similar to or in excess of the direct effects found here (Choe et al, ; Merz et al, ), though this has generally not been in a family stress model framework and therefore not always controlled for socioeconomic factors. However, some studies, such as Piotrowski and colleagues' (2013) cross‐sectional survey of parents of children aged 8 months up to 7 years, found parenting characteristics explained approximately 10% of the variance in children's self‐control over and above indicators of SES.…”

Gender differences in inhibitory control as assessed on simple delay tasks in early childhood: A meta-analysis

“…Ideally, across-age comparisons should be made using the same tasks with the same sample. This condition was met in six of the included studies (Gagne & Saudino, 2016;Gaertner, 2012;Lengua et al, 2015;Merz et al, 2016;Miller & Marcovitch, 2015;O'Toole et al, 2018), but as the age range covered in these studies was 2.4 years or less, this provides a rather small window through which to observe age changes in the magnitude of gender differences in delay ability.…”

“…The second correlation was that between verbal ability and gender. The data for this correlation were provided in 12 of the included studies Blair et al, 2015;Carlson, Mandell, & Williams, 2004;Carlson & Meltzer, 2008;Carlson, Moses, & Claxton, 2004;Chang et al, 2015;Cuevas et al, 2014;Leve et al, 2013;Merz et al, 2016;Obradovic ´et al, 2016;Peredo et al, 2015;Poland et al, 2016). For these studies, the weighted correlation between verbal ability and gender is found to equal .11, reflecting a small female advantage in verbal ability.…”