Search Results
Title: Paternal Absence from the Home: Consequences for Early Childhood Cognitive Development
Resulting in 1 citation.
| 1. |
Mott, Frank L. |
|
Paternal Absence from the Home: Consequences for Early Childhood Cognitive Development Presented: Santa Monica, CA, RAND Conference on Economic and Demographic Aspects of Intergenerational Relations, 1992 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: RAND Keyword(s): Behavioral Problems; Child Development; Children, Academic Development; Children, Behavioral Development; Fathers; Fathers, Absence; Fathers, Biological; Gender Differences; General Assessment; Household Composition; Maternal Employment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Tests and Testing This study uses data from the 1979 through 1986 waves of the NLSY and linked child assessment data to explore associations between a father's absence from the home and the cognitive development of children between the ages of three and seven. The research describes in detail linkages between various paternal-absence family forms (e.g., visitation in comparison with a "new man" present in comparison with no man present; father never present in comparison with father previously present) and a child's scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the PIAT reading recognition, comprehension and mathematics assessments controlling for a wide range of maternal and post-paternal absence family factors, testing a number of hypotheses suggested by the literature as potentially important predictors of child cognitive development. This includes (but is not limited to) examining the relevance of father presence or absence per se, the extent to which a visiting father or a new man in the home can moderate (or exacerbate) the effect of a biological father's non-residence and whether a father's recent absenting in comparison with never having been present makes a difference. Gender and racial variations are explored. Among the results: (1) a father's absence from the home shows only limited association with younger children's cognitive development even without any controls for background factors which can be anticipated to be associated both with father's absence and child cognition; (2) controlling for child behavior problems does not affect the association between father's absence and cognition in any way; (3) father's absence does not appear to adversely impact on young boys mathematical competence (it does adversely effect black girls); and (4) there is systematic evidence that continuing contact with an absent biological father is a preferable situation for white girls in comparison with living in an environment which includes a new man in the home. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Mott, Frank L. "Paternal Absence from the Home: Consequences for Early Childhood Cognitive Development." Presented: Santa Monica, CA, RAND Conference on Economic and Demographic Aspects of Intergenerational Relations, 1992. |