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The “socioeconomic achievement gap”—the disparity in academic achievement between students from high-and low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds—is well-known in the sociology of education. The SES achievement gap has been documented across a wide range of countries. Yet in most countries, we do not know whether the SES achievement gap has been changing over time. This study combines 30 international large-scale assessments over 50 years, representing 100 countries and about 5.8 million students. SES achievement gaps are computed between the 90th and 10th percentiles of three available measures of family SES: parents’ education, parents’ occupation, and the number of books in the home. Results indicate that, for each of the three SES variables examined, achievement gaps increased in a majority of sample countries. Yet there is substantial cross-national variation in the size of increases in SES achievement gaps. The largest increases are observed in countries with rapidly increasing school enrollments, implying that expanding access reveals educational inequality that was previously hidden outside the school system. However, gaps also increased in many countries with consistently high enrollments, suggesting that cognitive skills are an increasingly important dimension of educational stratification worldwide.

In this article, we describe the results of the second phase of a randomized controlled trial of Minding the Baby (MTB), an interdisciplinary reflective parenting intervention for infants and their families. Young first-time mothers living in underserved, poor, urban communities received intensive home visiting services from a nurse and social worker team for 27 months, from pregnancy to the child's second birthday. Results indicate that MTB mothers' levels of reflective functioning was more likely to increase over the course of the intervention than were those of control group mothers. Likewise, infants in the MTB group were significantly more likely to be securely attached, and significantly less likely to be disorganized, than infants in the control group. We discuss our findings in terms of their contribution to understanding the impacts and import of intensive intervention with vulnerable families during the earliest stages of parenthood in preventing the intergenerational transmission of disrupted relationships and insecure attachment.

Large systematic differences in young children’s home learning experiences have long-term economic consequences. Many parenting programs place significant demands on parents’ time and inundate parents with information. This study evaluates the effects of READY4K!, an eight-month-long text-messaging intervention for parents of preschoolers that targets the behavioral barriers to engaged parenting. We find that READY4K! increased parental involvement at home and school by 0.15 to 0.29 standard deviations, leading to child gains in early literacy of about 0.11 standard deviations. The results point to the salience of behavioral barriers to parenting and the potential for low-cost interventions to reduce these barriers.

This study investigates the complex roles of the social environment and genes in the multigenerational transmission of educational attainment. Drawing on genome-wide data and educational attainment measures from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I conduct polygenic score analyses to examine genetic confounding in the estimation of parents’ and grandparents’ influences on their children’s and grandchildren’s educational attainment. I also examine social genetic effects (i.e., genetic effects that operate through the social environment) in the transmission of educational attainment across three generations. Two-generation analyses produce three important findings. First, about one-fifth of the parent-child association in education reflects genetic inheritance. Second, up to half of the association between parents’ polygenic scores and children’s education is mediated by parents’ education. Third, about one-third of the association between children’s polygenic scores and their educational attainment is attributable to parents’ genotypes and education. Three-generation analyses suggest that genetic confounding on the estimate of the direct effect of grandparents’ education on grandchildren’s education (net of parents’ education) may be inconsequential, and I find no evidence that grandparents’ genotypes significantly influence grandchildren’s education through non-biological pathways. The three-generation results are suggestive, and the results may change when different samples are used.

Understanding the needs of adolescents and emerging adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with respect to transition to postsecondary education is critical to development of user-informed transition programming. Parents of adolescents and emerging adults with ASD (n = 52) and ADHD (n = 47) completed an online survey. Social interaction training and independent living training were services frequently requested by parents in the ASD group. Additionally, parents of postsecondary students with ASD endorsed distinct challenges with self-advocacy, managing emotions, and managing personal/adaptive skills relative to postsecondary students with ADHD. The profile of parent-reported difficulties and needed services compared to transition to postsecondary education for students with ASD is distinguishable from that for ADHD, suggesting individualized transition planning and in-college supports.

Strong arguments have been made for early intervention for child problems, stating that early is more effective than later, as the brain is more malleable, and costs are lower. However, there is scant evidence from trials to support this hypothesis, which we therefore tested in two well-powered, state-of-the-art meta-analyses with complementary strengths: (a) Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis of European trials of Incredible Years parenting intervention (k = 13, n = 1696; age = 2-11); (b) Larger, trial-level robust variance estimation meta-analysis of a wider range of parenting programs (k = 156, n = 13,378, Mage = 2-10) for reducing disruptive behavior. Both analyses found no evidence that intervention earlier in childhood was more effective; programs targeted at a narrower age range were no more effective than general ones.

Systematic research focused on developing and improving strategies for the dissemination and implementation of effective ASD services is essential. An innovative and promising area of research is the use of telehealth programs to train parents of children with ASD in intervention techniques. A hybrid telehealth program, combining self-directed internet-based instruction with remote coaching, was created to introduce parents of children with ASD to an imitation intervention. A single-subject multiple-baseline design study evaluated the effect of the program on changes in parent and child behavior. Parents improved in their use of the intervention techniques and their children demonstrated concurrent increases in spontaneous imitation skills. Parents also indicated that the intervention and telehealth service delivery model were acceptable, useable, and effective. Results suggest that this hybrid telehealth program has the potential to increase access to ASD services.

Half a century of research and program evaluation has fueled a diverse landscape of early childhood policies and practices that produce a range of positive effects on the life prospects of children who face the burdens of significant adversity. Drawing on advances in neurobiology, developmental psychology, developmental psychopathology, and prevention science, this paper presents a framework for elucidating underlying causal mechanisms that explain differences in outcomes, formulating enhanced theories of change about how to shift developmental trajectories, designing creative interventions and rethinking the concept of a two-generation strategy to produce breakthrough impacts, and launching a new era of investment in young children and their families that will achieve greater reductions in intergenerational disparities in learning, behavior, and health than those produced by current best practices. Particular attention is focused on the hypothesis that substantially better outcomes for vulnerable, young children could be achieved by greater attention to strengthening the resources and capabilities of the adults who care for them rather than by continuing to focus primarily on the provision of child-focused enrichment, parenting education, and informal support. Central to achieving this goal is the need to establish an innovation-friendly environment that embraces fast-cycle sharing, supports risk taking, and celebrates learning from failure.

In this article, the authors posit that programs promoting nurturing parent-child relationships influence outcomes of parents and young children living in poverty through two primary mechanisms: (a) strengthening parents' social support and (b) increasing positive parent-child interactions. The authors discuss evidence for these mechanisms as catalysts for change and provide examples from selected parenting programs that support the influence of nurturing relationships on child and parenting outcomes. The article focuses on prevention programs targeted at children and families living in poverty and closes with a discussion of the potential for widespread implementation and scalability for public health impact.

Background Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect or household adversity may have a range of serious negative impacts. There is a need to understand what interventions are effective to improve outcomes for people who have experienced ACEs. Methods Systematic review of systematic reviews. We searched 18 database sources from 2007 to 2018 for systematic reviews of effectiveness data on people who experienced ACEs aged 3–18, on any intervention and any outcome except incidence of ACEs. We included reviews with a summary quality score (AMSTAR) of 5.5 or above. Results Twenty-five reviews were included. Most reviews focus on psychological interventions and mental health outcomes. The strongest evidence is for cognitive-behavioural therapy for people exposed to abuse. For other interventions – including psychological therapies, parent training, and broader support interventions – the findings overall are inconclusive, although there are some positive results. Conclusions There are significant gaps in the evidence on interventions for ACEs. Most approaches focus on mitigating individual psychological harms, and do not address the social pathways which may mediate the negative impacts of ACEs. Many negative impacts of ACEs (e.g. on health behaviours, social relationships and life circumstances) have also not been widely addressed by intervention studies.