App-based interventions for emergent mathematical and literacy skills: Baseline skills and developmental trajectories of children with familial risk

Research Findings: Children with mathematical familial risk (MFR) or literacy familial risk (LFR) are more likely to struggle in academic contexts. Interventions at an early age can help counterbalance disparities in emergent skills. The present study (N = 500 preschoolers, Mage = 60.96 months, SDage = 4.61) investigated whether children with MFR (n = 25) and LFR (n = 60) differ in their emergent mathematical and literacy skills compared to their peers without familial risk (FR) and whether six-month app-based interventions improve the emergent skills of children with FR in the respective domain. Families were randomly assigned to intervention or control conditions. Welch t-tests showed that children with MFR had significantly lower baseline mathematical skills than their peers without MFR, while children with and without LFR did not differ significantly in their baseline literacy skills. Linear mixed models showed that children with MFR in the mathematical intervention group significantly improved their mathematical skills compared to those with MFR in the control group. These findings also applied to children with LFR in the literacy intervention condition.Practice or Policy: This study provides preliminary evidence that app-based interventions enhance mathematical and literacy outcomes in preschoolers with FR in the respective domain.