title: Parenting practices and intergenerational associations in cognitive ability.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cognitive ability is an important contributor to life chances, with implications for cycles of advantage or disadvantage across generations. Parenting practices are known to influence offspring cognitive development, but the extent to which these mediate intergenerational continuities and discontinuities in cognitive ability has not been adequately studied.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used factor analysis to derive summary measures of parenting practices, and regression analyses and path modelling to test associations between these and cognitive function at age 8 years in 1690 first offspring of the British 1946 birth cohort. Analyses allowed for direct and indirect effects of parental original and achieved social circumstances, educational attainment and own childhood cognitive ability. Additional covariates were provided by indicators of parental physical and mental health.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Regression analyses revealed that three aspects of parenting, intellectual home environment, parental aspiration and cognitive stimulation, were positively and independently associated with offspring childhood cognitive ability, whereas coercive discipline was negatively and independently associated. Path modelling was appropriate for intellectual environment, which also revealed direct and indirect effects of parental cognitive ability and educational and occupational attainment on offspring cognitive ability.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Parenting practices, particularly provision of an intellectual environment, were directly associated with offspring cognitive development. These data add to the relatively few studies that examine intergenerational continuity and discontinuity in cognitive ability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Byford
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kuh
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Richards
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012931:Social Environment; D055815:Young Adult