title: Intervention with Adolescent Mother-Child Dyads and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: a Meta-Analysis.
abstract: The cognitive development of children of adolescent mothers has often been considered to be at risk. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to examine whether early intervention could help foster more positive cognitive development in the 0- to 4-year-old children of adolescent mothers. Twenty-two studies were reviewed, involving 29 different intervention strategies and 3577 participants. An overall effect size (corrected for publication bias) of d = .24 was found (95% CI .11, .36). Intervention strategies that focused specifically on the quality of parent-child interaction (d = .89; 95% CI .36, 1.43) or that included parent-child interaction as an important target of intervention (d = .53; 95% CI .34, .73) yielded greater effect sizes than those that emphasized maternal support and education (d = .23; 95% CI .12, .34). Intervention that was delivered in groups (d = .56; 95% CI .36, .74) yielded greater effectiveness than dyadic intervention (d = .27; 95% CI .14, .39). Intervention delivered by trained professionals (d = .39; 95% CI .22, .56) was more effective than that delivered by paraprofessionals (d = .20; 95% CI -.02, .61). Older studies (slope = -.015) and those that involved smaller numbers of participants (slope = -.0008) also yielded greater effect sizes. There was also a marginal tendency for shorter intervention strategies (slope = -.002), and those that involved younger children (slope = -.005) and mothers (slope = -.074) to show greater effects. Discussion focuses on the developmental and practical implications of these results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychoeducation, University of Québec at Trois-Rivières, 850 Avenue de Vimy, Québec City, QC, G1S 0B7, Canada. claire.baudry@uqtr.ca.
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baudry
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Laval University, 2325 Avenue des Bibliothèques, Québec City, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada. George.Tarabulsy@psy.ulaval.ca.|University Research Center on Children and Families, Québec City, QC, Canada. George.Tarabulsy@psy.ulaval.ca.
authors.forename: George M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Tarabulsy
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Leslie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Atkinson
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pearson
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Laval University, 2325 Avenue des Bibliothèques, Québec City, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada.
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: St-Pierre
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009034:Mother-Child Relations
keywords: Adolescent motherhood; Child cognitive outcome; Intervention; Meta-analysis