Aletha C. Huston - US grants

The initial purposes of this research were to identify patterns of developmental continuity and change in children's early television viewing and to investigate how those patterns are related to family environmental influences and to children's cognitive and social skills. The major purposes of the renewal are (1) to examine more fully the role of the family environment in children's use of and responses to television, (2) to examine how family attributes modify or mediate the "effects" of viewing on children's cognitive and social skills, (3) to investigate patterns of viewing for parents and siblings, and (4) to examine temporal patterns in children's viewing. The data consist of rich set of longitudinal information about television viewing of 326 young children and their families. Two cohorts of children were followed for 2 years from ages 3-5 and 5-7 respectively. Parents completed five semiannual one-week television diaries describing all viewing by all members of the household. Parents were interviewed and children were tested before and after the two- year period. The outcomes of interest are patterns of viewing different types of television programs, and developmental changes in those patterns, not simply total television viewing. Four types of family environmental variables will be considered: (a) direct influences of parents' and siblings' coviewing with children; (b) indirect influences provided by parents' and siblings' overall viewing, parents' use of other media, and parent attitudes and regulations; (c) structural features of family life such as maternal employment and out-of-home activities; and (d) television options in the home. The temporal patterns of children's viewing will be assessed by fine-grained analysis of the diary records to determine how long viewing episodes last, how likely children are to watch successive programs on the same channel, how likely they are to change channels, and how these probabilities are affected by changes in programs or by presence of other family members. Because television is an integral part of family life, information about the role of the family in socializing children's uses of and responses to television has important implications for mental health.

The goal of Phase II of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care is to extend a collaborative (10-site) prospective, longitudinal study of a cohort of 1247 children and their families, first enrolled at one month of age and studied intensively through age 3 (Phase I). We propose to follow these subjects through first grade in order to investigate: (a) the effects of early alternate care (defined in terms of quality, quantity, type, onset age, and stability) on children's development during the preschool years and the transition to school; (b) the ways in which the effects of early alternate care are moderated by child characteristics and by experiences in the family and in school; and (c) the mediating processes linking early alternate care experiences with later outcomes. The Phase II design involves intensive study of children and their parents at 4-1/2 years and in first grade in their homes, the laboratory, alternate care setting, and school (first grade). Additionally, data will be collected by mailed questionnaires and phone interviews during kindergarten. Child outcome assessments will focus on (a) social-emotional development, including the quality of children's relationships with their parents, friends, and teachers; emotional adjustment, social competence, behavior problems, and self perceptions; (b)cognitive development, including general intellectual functioning, academic achievement, cognitive processes, and language; and (c) health status, including physical growth. Context assessments will focus on (a) the alternate-care environment, including quality, quantity, type, onset age, and stability; (b) the home/family environment, including quality of home life, and parent and structuring characteristics; and (c) school environment, including school climate, curricular features, and the teacher's behavior. We plan to evaluate four models pertaining to the ways in which early alternate-care experiences may affect development: (a) cumulative effects that increase gradually over time or exposure; (b)durable effects of early alternate-care experience that continue even after changes in care; (c) lagged or sleeper effects that are not evident concurrently, but appear at a later point in time; and (d) transient effects of early alternate care that fade over time. Concurrent effects of alternate care also will be examined.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to extend the Child and Family Study of the New Hope Project, a random-assignment experiment designed to test the effects of an employment-based anti-poverty program on family functioning and child development, using both large-scale surveys and ethnographic qualitative methods. New Hope provided low-income participants with wage supplements and subsidies for health insurance and child care if they worked full time. The rigorous random assignment experimental design represents a strong test of the causal effects of employment, income, and benefits. New Hope led to increased parental employment, income, use of center-based child care, and structured out-of-school activities for children, and, for some families, more predictable daily routines. Children in New Hope families showed substantially better academic performance and higher levels of positive social behavior in school than did the control group 2 and 5 years after parents began New Hope eligibility. These robust experimental-control differences suggest that the intervention provided by New Hope had long-term effects on children's developmental pathways. In this renewal, we propose to assess these families and children (8 years after random assignment) when the sample children are 9 - 18 years old. The major questions include: (a) Are there lasting program effects on children's achievement and social behavior when they reach late childhood and adolescence? Do program effects vary for children of different ages and for girls and boys? (b) What are the pathways of influence? We examine parent's employment, family resources, family environment, and children's out of- school experiences. The study contains multiple measures from multiple informants and an integration of ethnographic qualitative data with a large-scale survey--all of which provide the power/potential to identify theoretically interesting pathways and hypotheses. Mid-to late adolescence is a critical period for the development of values, aspirations, and attitudes that affect achievement, life planning, behavior and mental health throughout the life span. Adolescents in poverty are at high risk for low educational attainment and weak attachment to work and family during adulthood. Therefore, it is crucial to understand whether and how the program may have enhanced adolescent competencies that set a pattern for successful adult development and may have deterred problematic behaviors that signal departure from the course to adult independence and self-sufficiency.