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The problem
Intervention: Maternal perceived social support as a potential protective factor/buffer
Who it was tested with: 28 Indigenous children (M age 28 months at baseline, 58 months at follow-up) and their mothers in rural Ecuadorian Amazon.
The same group is measured before the intervention and again afterwards, with a baseline and an endline and sometimes a midline. Change is visible, but other causes cannot be ruled out.
"A three-level linear mixed model revealed a significant interaction between early cognitive ability and maternal perceived social support on functional activation. Specifically, children of mothers with high social support showed no association between early cognitive ability and cortical activation, while those with low support exhibited atypical patterns (hyper- or hypoactivation)." The study demonstrates that maternal social support is associated with more typical neurocognitive development patterns in children experiencing poverty-related stress.
Small sample size (n=28) limits generalizability; no comparison group with higher socioeconomic status; cross-sectional brain imaging at T2 prevents firm causal inference about protective mechanisms; measurement of maternal perception of support rather than objective support quantity
Across countries and designs
2 studies · 2 countries
