Title

Cochrane Systematic Review: Home based child development interventions for pre-school children from socially disadvantaged families

Research Team

Dr Sarah Miller (PI)

Timescale

Ocober 2007 – September 2009

Funder

Research and Development Office NI.

Aims and Objectives

To examine the evidence for the effectiveness of home based child development programmes that are specifically aimed at improving developmental outcomes for pre-school children from socially disadvantaged families.

Methodology

The review will include studies that used randomised controlled trials and quasi-randomised controlled trials to compare home based child development programmes with either no intervention or standard care.  However, studies that have evaluated interventions targeting specific clinical subgroups of children or parents will be excluded.  The child outcomes that will be examined will be those associated with child development including: cognitive ability, physical and mental well-being, emotional and behavioural adjustment, language and social skills and academic achievement.  Parental outcomes will include: knowledge of child development, parenting behaviour, home environment, parent-child interaction, anxiety and depression, parenting stress, self-esteem and cost-effectiveness.  Only validated scales and teacher and parental report measures of the aforementioned variables will be considered for the review. 

Outputs

The finished review will be published in the Cochrane library after October 2009.

Further Information

For further information please contact Dr Sarah Miller.