RELATIONS BETWEEN PARENT CONFIDENCE, ATTITUDES, BELIEFS AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT DEVELOPMENT AND PLAY AND INFANT DEVELOPMENT

Purpose/Hypothesis: Parent-infant play interactions and a child’s environment can impact development across multiple domains. The purpose of this study was to determine whether parents’ frequency of play with infants, beliefs and attitudes about play, or affordances in the home environment relate to infant development across developmental domains.

Number of Subjects: 35 typically developing infants (3.5 ± 1.5 mos) and 14 infants (3.8 ± 1.0 mos corrected age) eligible for early intervention and their parent(s) (n=44).

Materials/Methods: This study reports on baseline data from a randomized clinical trial. Baseline evaluations occurred in-person or virtually based on parents’ preferences. Parents’ frequency of play with infants and beliefs about play were measured using the Parent Play Questionnaire (PPQ); affordances were documented using the Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development- Infant Scale (AHEMD-IS). Infant development was evaluated using the Developmental Assessment of Young Children-2nd Edition (DAYC) and the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS). Correlational analyses were conducted using Spearman’s Rho for non-parametric data. Effect sizes greater than 0.3 were considered moderate; significance was set at 0.05.

Results: Infants of parents who reported playing with their infants more frequently had higher total AIMS scores (r = 0.324., p = 0.032). Infants of parents who had more positive beliefs about involvement and enjoyment during play had higher DAYC-2 general developmental indices (r = 0.354, p = 0.018), stemming from differences in receptive language (r = 0.322, p = 0.033) performance. Infants with more affordances in the home had higher total AIMS scores (r = 0.442, p = 0.003).

Conclusions: These results suggest that play experiences and environmental affordances may impact young children’s development, although the results do not demonstrate causality. The results are consistent with other studies that have shown relations between affordances in the home and infant gross motor development. Importantly, this is the first study to our knowledge to implement the DAYC-2, a common tool in early intervention practice.

Clinical Relevance: Early intervention providers should engage in discussions with families about ways to enhance parents’ beliefs and practices regarding infant play and home affordances, as these factors are related to children’s gross motor, and receptive language development.