Participation in a home visiting program predicted maternal but not child vocabulary diversity: A pragmatic randomized trial in Brazil.

Meredith L Rowe, Giana Bitencourt Frizzo, Caroline Bortolotto, Esmeralda Correa Macana, Hernane Guimarães Dos Santos Junior, Marta Rovery de Souza, Letícia Marques Dos Santos, Luciano Lima Correia, Elisa Rachel Pisani Altafim, Cristiane Salum, Gabriela Vescovi, Alicia Matijasevich, Iná S Santos, Tiago N Munhoz, Raquel Barcelos, Pedro Israel Cabral de Lira, Cauane Blumenberg

Journal: Journal of experimental child psychology 2025;254():106216

PMID: 40043664

Full Text on Elsevier Science View on PubMed

Abstract

The Criança Feliz (Happy Child) parenting program is a home visiting intervention serving over a million low-income Brazilian families. The current study assessed its longitudinal associations with maternal and child speech and gestures in a subsample (n = 145) from the program's impact evaluation research. We performed a between-participants pragmatic randomized trial. Mothers (79.7% Black) and children (17-25 months of age; 50.3% female) were randomly assigned to control (n = 73) and intervention (n = 72) groups. One year later, mother-child pairs were recorded playing at home, and the videos were transcribed and analyzed for speech (quantity, vocabulary diversity, sentence complexity, and number of questions) and gestures (quantity). Intention-to-treat analysis revealed that the intervention was associated with the mother's vocabulary diversity (d = .35) regardless of schooling level. No direct or indirect (via maternal speech) associations were observed with the child's speech or gestures. This preliminary evidence suggests that participation in the Criança Feliz program is related to mothers' vocabulary diversity but not to children's speech or gesture measures. The program could focus on maternal gestures, questions, and book reading (complexity feature). Future research evaluating the impact of the program on language outcomes should include pretesting and child follow-up assessments.

Address: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil. Electronic address: [email protected].; Graduate Program in Psychology and Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology, Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), Pelotas, Brazil.; Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA.; Mental Health Program, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil.; Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology, Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), Pelotas, Brazil.; Departmento de Medicina Preventiva, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.; Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Santo André, Brazil.; Department of Community Health, Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza, Brazil.; Department of Nutrition, Health Sciences Center, Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), University City, Recife, Brazil.; Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Salvador, Brazil.; Department of Public Health, Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, Brazil.; Instituto de Saúde Coletiva (ISCO), Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará (UFOPA), Santarém, Brazil.; Itaú Social, São Paulo, Brazil.; Causale Consultoria, Pelotas, Brazil, and Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology, Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), Pelotas, Brazil.; Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), Pelotas, Brazil.; Postgraduate Program in Psychology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil.

DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106216

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MeSH Terms: Adult, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Brazil, Gestures, House Calls, Mother-Child Relations, Mothers, Parenting, Poverty, Speech, Vocabulary