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A community-based responsive caregiving program improves neurodevelopment in two-year old children in a middle-income country, Grenada, West Indies. Psychosocial Intervention

A community-based responsive caregiving program improves neurodevelopment in two-year old children in a middle-income country, Grenada, West Indies. Psychosocial Intervention
A community-based responsive caregiving program improves neurodevelopment in two-year old children in a middle-income country, Grenada, West Indies. Psychosocial Intervention
Many young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk of developmental delays. Early child development (ECD) interventions have been shown to improve outcomes, but few interventions have targeted culturally normative violence such as corporal punishment (CP). We partnered with an existing community-based ECD organization in the LMIC of Grenada to implement a parallel controlled-trial single-blind responsive caregiving intervention that educates parents about the developing brain and teaches alternatives to corporal punishment while building parental self-regulation skills and strengthening social-emotional connections between parent and child. Parents and primary caregivers with children under age two were eligible. Allocation to the intervention and waitlist control arms was unblinded and determined by recruitment into the program. Neurodevelopment was assessed by blinded testers when each child turned age two. Primary comparison consisted of neurodevelopmental scores between the intervention and waitlist control groups (Clinicaltrials.gov registration xxx NCT04697134). Secondary comparison consisted of changes in maternal mental health, home environment, and attitudes towards CP. Children in the intervention group (n = 153) had significantly higher scores than children in the control group (n = 151) on measures of cognition (p = .022), fine motor (p < .0001), gross motor (p = .015), and language development (p = .013). No difference in secondary outcomes, including CP, was detected.
Child neurodevelopment, Corporal punishment, Early child development, Responsive caregiving, Social-emotional connection
1132-0559
97 - 107
Fernandes, Michelle
16d62e60-ae8e-455f-88d3-88e778253b4a
Fernandes, Michelle
16d62e60-ae8e-455f-88d3-88e778253b4a

Fernandes, Michelle (2022) A community-based responsive caregiving program improves neurodevelopment in two-year old children in a middle-income country, Grenada, West Indies. Psychosocial Intervention. Psychosocial Intervention, 31 (2), 97 - 107. (doi:10.5093/pi2022a6).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Many young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk of developmental delays. Early child development (ECD) interventions have been shown to improve outcomes, but few interventions have targeted culturally normative violence such as corporal punishment (CP). We partnered with an existing community-based ECD organization in the LMIC of Grenada to implement a parallel controlled-trial single-blind responsive caregiving intervention that educates parents about the developing brain and teaches alternatives to corporal punishment while building parental self-regulation skills and strengthening social-emotional connections between parent and child. Parents and primary caregivers with children under age two were eligible. Allocation to the intervention and waitlist control arms was unblinded and determined by recruitment into the program. Neurodevelopment was assessed by blinded testers when each child turned age two. Primary comparison consisted of neurodevelopmental scores between the intervention and waitlist control groups (Clinicaltrials.gov registration xxx NCT04697134). Secondary comparison consisted of changes in maternal mental health, home environment, and attitudes towards CP. Children in the intervention group (n = 153) had significantly higher scores than children in the control group (n = 151) on measures of cognition (p = .022), fine motor (p < .0001), gross motor (p = .015), and language development (p = .013). No difference in secondary outcomes, including CP, was detected.

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Submitted date: 9 July 2021
Accepted/In Press date: 8 February 2022
Published date: May 2022
Additional Information: Funding Information: The study was supported by a grant from Grand Challenges Canada Saving Brains Program (#0587-03). MF is supported by a Career Track Fellowship at the Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. We thank the caregivers and children, the Roving Caregivers, the research team, the Government of Grenada, Conscious Discipline for their contributions to the study and the Grand Challenges Saving Brains platform team for their support in the preparation of this manuscript. Funding Information: Desarrollo neurológico infantil Desarrollo temprano infantil Parentalidad responsiva Vínculos socioemocionales Castigo corporal Cite this article as: Waechter, R., Evans, R., Fernandes, M., Bailey, B., Holmes, S., Murray, T., Isaac, R., Punch, B., Cudjoe, N., Orlando, L., Landon, B. (2022). A community-based responsive caregiving program improves neurodevelopment in two-year old children in a middle-income country, Grenada, West Indies. Psychosocial Intervention, 31(2), 97-107. https://doi.org/10.5093/pi2022a6 Funding: The study was supported by a grant from Grand Challenges Canada Saving Brains Program (#0587-03). MF is supported by a Career Track Fellowship at the Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. We thank the caregivers and children, the Roving Caregivers, the research team, the Government of Grenada, Conscious Discipline for their contributions to the study and the Grand Challenges Saving Brains platform team for their support in the preparation of this manuscript. Correspondence: rwaechte@sgu.edu (R. Waechter). ISSN:1132-0559/© 2022 Colegio Oficial de la Psicología de Madrid. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Colegio Oficial de la Psicología de Madrid.
Keywords: Child neurodevelopment, Corporal punishment, Early child development, Responsive caregiving, Social-emotional connection

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 457175
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/457175
ISSN: 1132-0559
PURE UUID: 80e389c5-6e9a-4558-9e89-fe4536c3d549
ORCID for Michelle Fernandes: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0051-3389

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Date deposited: 25 May 2022 17:07
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:10

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Author: Michelle Fernandes ORCID iD

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