Literacy exposure checklists that assess parental picture book knowledge (Parental Title Checklist [PTC] and Parental Author Checklist [PAC]) have been developed as proxy measures for literacy environments. Although previous research suggests that parental picture book knowledge is a strong predictor of language skills for preschoolers older than…

This study examined bidirectional relations between television exposure and effortful control accounting for the effects of family contextual risk factors. Data were from a sample (N = 306) of parents and their preschool-age children (T1 M = 36 mos. in 2008-2010) assessed four times, once every 9 mos. At T1, adolescent parent status predicted…

The home numeracy environment (HNE) is often predictive of children's early mathematics skills, though the findings are mixed. Overall, research on kindergarten-aged children demonstrates a relation between the HNE and early numeracy skills, whereas findings for preschool-aged children are more equivocal. One potential reason for equivocality of…

Using a sample of 263 mother-child dyads, we examined the extent to which maternal emotional and cognitive support during a joint problem-solving task when children were 3-years-old predicted children's academic skills 1 year later independent of each other, the quality of the home learning environment, and maternal emotional responsiveness. When…

This longitudinal assessment concentrated on the relation between the home literacy environment (HLE) and early language acquisition during infancy and toddlerhood. In study 1, after controlling for socio-economic status, a broadly defined HLE predicted language comprehension in 50 infants. In study 2, 27 children returned for further analyses.…

Evidence from intervention studies, quantitative genetic and molecular genetic studies suggests that genetic, and to a lesser extent, shared environmental influences are important to the development of reading and related cognitive skills. The Northeast-Northwest Collaborative Adoption Projects (N2CAP) is a sample of 241 adoptive families,…

Despite increasing interest in the effects of parenting stress on children and families, many questions remain regarding the nature of parenting stress and the mechanism through which stress exerts its influence across time. In this study, cumulative parenting stress was assessed across the preschool period in a sample of 125 typically developing…