Rubio-Codina Marta, Attanasio Orazio, Grantham-McGregor Sally
Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, UK; Inter-American Development Bank, Washington DC, USA.
Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, UK; University College London, London, UK.
Int J Behav Dev. 2016 Nov;40(6):483-491. doi: 10.1177/0165025415626515. Epub 2016 Jun 17.
Research has previously shown a gap of near 0.5 of a standard deviation (SD) in cognition and language development between the top and bottom household wealth quartile in children aged 6-42 months in a large representative sample of low- and middle-income families in Bogota, using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. The gaps in fine motor and socio-emotional development were about half that size. Developmental deficits increased with age. The current study explored the associations amongst child development, household socio-economic status (SES), and a set of potential mediating variables-parental characteristics, child biomedical factors, and the quality of the home environment-in this sample. We ran mediation tests to quantify the contribution of these variables to the SES gap, and explored the role of age as a moderator. Parental education, particularly maternal education, and the quality of the home environment mediated the SES gap in all outcomes examined. Height-for-age mediated a small amount of the deficit in language scales only. More educated mothers provided better home stimulation than less educated mothers and the home environment partly mediated the effect of maternal education. These results suggested that in interventions aimed at promoting child development, those focusing on the quality of the home environment should be effective.
此前的研究表明,在波哥大低收入和中等收入家庭的一个具有广泛代表性的样本中,使用贝利婴幼儿发展量表对6至42个月大的儿童进行评估,家庭财富处于最高和最低四分位数的儿童在认知和语言发展方面存在近0.5个标准差的差距。精细运动和社会情感发展方面的差距约为该差距的一半。发育缺陷随年龄增长而增加。本研究在该样本中探讨了儿童发展、家庭社会经济地位(SES)以及一系列潜在中介变量(父母特征、儿童生物医学因素和家庭环境质量)之间的关联。我们进行了中介测试,以量化这些变量对SES差距的贡献,并探讨年龄作为调节变量的作用。在所有研究的结果中,父母教育程度,尤其是母亲的教育程度,以及家庭环境质量介导了SES差距。年龄别身高仅介导了语言量表中少量的发育缺陷。受教育程度较高的母亲比受教育程度较低的母亲提供了更好的家庭刺激,并且家庭环境部分介导了母亲教育的影响。这些结果表明,在旨在促进儿童发展的干预措施中,那些关注家庭环境质量的措施应该是有效的。