Photo Credit: freepik

The following is a summary of “Associations Between Parenting and Cognitive and Language Abilities at 2 Years of Age Depend on Prenatal Exposure to Disadvantage,” published in the September 2024 issue of Pediatrics by Leverett et al.

This study explores whether parenting practices or neonatal brain volumes mediate the relationship between prenatal social disadvantage (SD). It also explores early cognitive and language abilities and whether these mediating mechanisms differ according to the level of prenatal disadvantage. Pregnant women were prospectively recruited from obstetric clinics in St. Louis, Missouri, with prenatal SD defined as access to social (e.g., education) and material (e.g., income-to-needs ratio, health insurance, area deprivation, and nutrition) resources during pregnancy. Neonates underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and mother-child dyads (N = 202) were followed up at one year for parenting observations and at two years for cognitive and language assessments using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-III. Generalized additive and mediation models were employed to test the hypotheses.

The findings indicate that greater prenatal SD is nonlinearly associated with poorer cognitive and language scores. The influence of parenting on cognitive and language outcomes was moderated by the level of prenatal disadvantage; specifically, supportive and non-supportive parenting behaviors were associated with cognition and language abilities only in children experiencing lesser levels of prenatal SD. The effects of mediation on parenting also varied by disadvantage level: supportive and non-supportive parenting mediated the association between prenatal SD and cognitive/language outcomes in children with lower levels of disadvantage but not in those with higher levels. Additionally, reductions in neonatal subcortical grey matter (β = 0.19, q = 0.03), white matter (β = 0.23, q = 0.02), and total brain volume (β = 0.18, q = 0.03) due to prenatal SD were linked to lower cognitive scores. Still, these reductions did not mediate the relationship between prenatal SD and cognition.

In conclusion, while parenting practices play a role in moderating and mediating the effects of prenatal SD on early cognitive and language development, this effect is significant only in contexts of lesser social disadvantage. These correlational findings suggest that there may be a critical threshold of disadvantage beyond which mediating and moderating factors are less effective, emphasizing the need for intervention to reduce prenatal social disadvantage as a primary prevention strategy.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022347624003925