The Family Life Project, Phase I, United States, September 2003-January 2008

The purpose of this project is to study the early development of a group of children who are at risk regarding later successful adjustment and for whom we have little information: children living in rural, largely poor communities. A birth cohort of 800 children in three rural counties of North Carolina and 600 children in three rural counties of Pennsylvania were studied over the first 3 years of life. A multidisciplinary team investigated multiple levels of influences affecting the early development of these children. The research emphases of the component research projects include the following: Project I: Temperament: Emphasizes the development of child-related factors and how they predict preschool social-emotional and cognitive competence; Project II: School Readiness: Emphasizes the pathways to and precursors of school readiness; Project III: Family Process: Emphasizes how family processes mediate or moderate the effects of rural poverty on children; Project IV: Work and Family: Emphasizes the impact of parents' occupational conditions on parenting, and, in turn, children's social, cognitive, emotional and linguistic development; Project V: Ethnography: Emphasizes two components:; an in-depth contextual appraisal of community characteristics; a family ethnography with 72 families developmentally ahead of the cohort above to provide input to design and measurement; This project used a cumulative risk model to examine the relation between social risk and children's executive functioning, language development and behavioral competence at 36 months. Using both the Family Process Model of development and the Family Investment Model of development, observed parenting was examined over time in relation to child functioning at 36 months. Different aspects of observed parenting were examined as mediators/moderators of risk in predicting child outcomes. Results suggested that cumulative risk was important in predicting all three major domains of child outcomes and that positive and negative parenting and maternal language complexity were mediators of these relations. Maternal positive parenting was found to be a buffer for the most risky families in predicting behavioral competence. In a final model using both family process and investment measures, there was evidence of mediation but with little evidence of the specificity of parenting for particular outcomes. Results demonstrate the importance of cumulative risk and parenting in understanding child competence in rural poverty and the implications for possible intervention strategies that might be effective in maximizing the early development of these children.

本研究旨在探究一类后续适应状况存在风险且现有研究信息匮乏的儿童群体的早期发展轨迹，该群体为生活在以贫困为主的农村社区的儿童。本研究对北卡罗来纳州3个农村县的800名出生队列（birth cohort）儿童，以及宾夕法尼亚州3个农村县的600名儿童开展了生命前3年的追踪研究。由多学科研究团队针对影响该类儿童早期发展的多维度影响因素展开系统性探究。各分项研究的核心研究重点如下：项目一：气质（Temperament）：聚焦儿童自身相关因素的发展规律，及其对学龄前儿童社会情绪能力与认知能力的预测作用；项目二：入学准备（School Readiness）：聚焦儿童入学准备能力的形成路径与前置影响因素；项目三：家庭过程（Family Process）：探究家庭过程如何介导或调节农村贫困对儿童发展的影响；项目四：工作与家庭（Work and Family）：探究父母职业状况对育儿行为的影响，以及该影响如何进一步作用于儿童的社会、认知、情绪与语言发展；项目五：民族志（Ethnography）：包含两大研究维度：1. 对社区特征开展深入的情境化评估；2. 选取72个发育水平超前于本研究队列的家庭开展家庭民族志研究，为研究设计与测量工具开发提供参考依据。本研究采用累积风险模型（cumulative risk model），考察儿童36月龄时社会风险与执行功能（executive functioning）、语言发展及行为能力（behavioral competence）之间的关联。本研究同时结合发展家庭过程模型（Family Process Model）与家庭投资模型（Family Investment Model），追踪观察育儿行为，并分析其与儿童36月龄时的发展状态的关联。研究还针对观察到的育儿行为的不同维度，分析其在预测儿童发展结果时作为风险因素的中介/调节变量的作用。研究结果显示，累积风险可有效预测儿童发展三大核心领域的结果，且积极与消极育儿行为、母亲语言复杂度均在上述关联中起到中介作用。研究还发现，母亲的积极育儿行为可作为缓冲因素，缓解高风险家庭儿童在行为能力发展上的劣势。在结合家庭过程与家庭投资测量指标的最终模型中，虽发现了中介效应的存在，但未发现育儿行为对特定发展结果存在特异性关联。本研究结果证实了累积风险与育儿行为在理解农村贫困背景下儿童能力发展中的重要作用，并为制定可有效促进该类儿童早期发展的干预策略提供了理论依据与实践参考。