A holistic intervention program for children from low socioeconomic status families

There is considerable evidence that children from families with low socioeconomic status (SES) are at risk of profound delays in cognitive development and educational achievement. Scholars and policy makers have therefore sought to identify the potential causes of these problems and to design interventions to narrow this achievement gap. With this goal, Neville et al. (2013) developed a family-based intervention (PCMC-A) to improve neurocognitive functions supporting selective attention in low-SES preschoolers. Involving both parents and children in the training, they demonstrated that the PCMC-A significantly improved nonverbal IQ, receptive language, neurocognitive functions supporting early attentional processing, parent-reported social skills, and parent-child interactions, and reduced parenting stress. Given that previous studies have focused on the training of children, it is noteworthy that Neville et al. examined factors related to not only children but also parents (e.g., parents’ stress regulation and contingency-based discipline) and the home environment (e.g., parent-child interaction, parents’ language use with the child, and facilitation of child attention). Although the authors’ findings are interesting and their contributions are remarkable, the family-related factors chosen for the study are far from satisfactory, as the study did not adequately consider the broader family context, which is crucial in capturing the richer dimensions of SES. Our primary goal is therefore to draw attention to the challenges posed by the family-based intervention of Neville et al. In particular, we recommend that future research consider risk factors such as personal resilience, as well as maternal and environmental factors, as they have been shown to affect cognitive development in children from low-SES families (for a review, see Bradley and Corwyn, 2002; Evans, 2004, 2006). Specifically, resilience—a dynamic process wherein individuals display positive adaptation despite significant adversity or trauma (Luthar and Cicchetti, 2000)— is a crucial index of individual differences in the fundamental adaptive system. Often overlooked, it has nonetheless been proven to be a positive moderator for many low-SES children who do well despite the odds (Knitzer and Perry, 2009). Early research on resilience—assessed by children’s attachment security or social competence (Luthar and Cicchetti, 2000; Masten, 2001)—has largely emphasized the importance of personality traits and active coping strategies that help children overcome adversity and the risk factors associated with low SES (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002). Thus, future interventions should promote resilience by focusing on self-regulation skills that are essential in facilitating children’s adaptive abilities, such as self-control, social competencies, and emotion regulation. In fact, the effectiveness of self-regulation has been demonstrated in various intervention programs (Greenberg, 2006; Diamond et al., 2007; Bierman et al., 2008; Raver et al., 2011). Moreover, future family interventions must include maternal risk factors. The literature has consistently shown that maternal depression and substance abuse (e.g., cocaine, tobacco, or alcohol) have been linked with severe consequences for cognitive development (Petterson and Albers, 2001; Shankaran et al., 2007). Furthermore, because low-SES infants are generally more prone to experience these maternal risk factors than their high-SES counterparts, the consequences are usually more pronounced in children from low-SES families (Parker et al., 1988; McLoyd, 1998). Hence, it is important to screen mothers with either depressive symptoms or previous history of substance abuse. Alternatively, future family interventions should consider including a self-care program (e.g., relaxation, social skills, personal development and recreational activities, or marital adjustment), caregiving practices (e.g., co-parenting or child-care resources), or substance abuse treatment (e.g., counseling or relapse prevention), all of which are known to improve maternal mental well-being. Finally, there is no doubt that chronic noise exposure, crowded housing (calculated by the number of people per room), substandard housing (low-quality construction or lack of privacy, cleanliness, tidiness, or children’s resources), and poor neighborhood quality are prevalent among low-SES homes (for a review, see