Playful Activities Mitigate Relations Between Parental Mental Health Difficulties and Child Verbal Outcomes.

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Child Development, 2026, v. 96, no. 2: Playful Activities Mitigate Relations Between Parental Mental Health Difficulties and Child Verbal Outcomes.
• Journal Article:
  Child Development
• Personal Author:
  Nelson, Paige M. ; Scheiber, Francesca ; Laughlin, Haley M. ; Demir-Lira, Ö. Ece
• Description:
  This study examined the role of parental involvement in the home learning environment in the association between parental mental health and child cognitive performance. In a sample of 174 three- to five-year-old children (52% female, 97% White, 7% Hispanic, 2019-2022), playful activities moderated the relation between parental general depression and child verbal reasoning and acquired verbal knowledge. However, there was no evidence that parental involvement moderated the association between parental mental health and child spatial reasoning. These results improve our understanding of the pathways by which parental mental health, even in a non-clinical community sample, relate to child outcomes and raise the possibility of leveraging playful activities as one mechanism to alleviate the potential role of parental mental health difficulties.
• Content Notes:
  Author manuscript
• Subjects:
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Male
  • Child, Preschool
  • Play and Playthings
  • Child of Impaired Parents
  • Depression
  • Adult
  • Parents
  • Parenting
  More +
• Source:
  Child Development, 2026, v. 96, no. 2
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14187
• ISSN:
  0009-3920 ; 1467-8624
• Pubmed ID:
  39445790
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC11868687
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  R03HD102449/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/ ; U48 DP006389/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; T32 GM108540/GM/NIGMS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; P50 HD103556/HD/NICHD NIH HHSUnited States/ ; T32GM108540/GM/NIGMS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R03 HD102449/HD/NICHD NIH HHSUnited States/ ; T32 GM149386/GM/NIGMS NIH HHSUnited States/
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Pages in Document:
  562-576 (26 pdf pages)
• Volume:
  96
• Issue:
  2
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/261957/cdc_261957_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 956.75 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:e4e852f196fb432d742a582cf742251c1e5ea4a98bcf0afa31db0e339a9360ebee978e98a3b5843738e44a958bb58d07c5e78aba801ce7edd4685a63e63012db