Family processes as pathways from income to young children's development.
2002/09/01 by Miriam R. Linver, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne Brooks‐Gunn +2 · 737 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Anxiety #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Child development #Clinical psychology #Cognition #Cognitive development #Developmental psychology #Distress #Early Childhood Education and Development #Emotional distress #Family income #Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum #Psychiatry #Psychology #Test (biology)
paper · doi:10.1037/0012-1649.38.5.719
published in Developmental Psychology 38(5), 719-734 (American Psychological Association)
openalex publication_date 2002/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Abstract
A variety of family processes have been hypothesized to mediate associations between income and young children's development. Maternal emotional distress, parental authoritative and authoritarian behavior (videotaped mother-child interactions), and provision of cognitively stimulating activities (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment [HOME] scales) were examined as possible mediators in a sample of 493 White and African American low-birth-weight premature infants who were followed from birth through age 5. Cognitive ability was assessed by standardized test, and child behavior problems by maternal report, when the children were 3 and 5 years of age. As expected, family income was associated with child outcomes. The provision of stimulating experiences in the home mediated the relation between family income and both children's outcomes; maternal emotional distress and parenting practices mediated the relation between income and children's behavior problems.
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