Abstract
Contextual diversity in early childhood development present challenges and opportunities for holistic child development. This study explored home and parental factors associated with early childhood developmental outcomes in rural communities. Using purposive sampling, 175 families with children aged 0–8 (87 girls and 88 boys) were recruited to participate in the study. Parents responded to home and parenting measures assessing early developmental supports at home. Child developmental outcomes (cognition, alphabet knowledge, receptive language, pattern reasoning, attention, and fine motor skills) for 58 children were assessed. Correlations showed positive associations of home and parent measures with child outcomes except socioeconomic status and receptive language. This study highlights presence of nurturance care and stimulatory behaviors in rural communities that reflect variations in child outcomes. Based on findings, it was recommended that parent empowering programs be embedded in practices of childcare that incorporate local knowledge and materials including ways they foster different aspects of early developmental skills.
Keywords
Momentum to invest in early childhood development (ECD) follows scientific evidence linking early care toward global goals for optimal developmental progress. Many children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at-risk of compromised developmental potential, long-term negative consequences undermining health, wellbeing, and productivity. While several factors are linked to this compromised state, strong evidence converge on significance of early experiences and opportunities as support for increased competence, autonomy and independence (Black and Aboud, 2011; Daelmans et al., 2017; Yousafzai et al., 2016). These early life experiences and opportunities afforded to children (prenatal to 5 years) create a trajectory across lifespan. In early life, the child’s immediate environment (parents, siblings, and caretakers), settings (home and school), external contexts (parents’ work), and larger social contexts dealing with governance are among players influencing ECD (Britto and Ulkuer, 2012). Support from Neuroscience underscore early experiences influencing brain architecture, functioning (Noble et al., 2015) and later adaptability (Shonkoff et al., 2021a). Consequently, children experiencing adversity show increased risk for poor social, cognitive, and health outcomes that are increasingly difficult to reverse beyond ECD (Jones et al., 2018; Shonkoff et al., 2021b; Wachs and Rahman, 2013). Nonetheless, childcare that promotes and engages age-appropriate play (du Toit et al., 2021), communication, stimulating environment, nutrition, strengthened sensitivity, and responsiveness to child needs show better outcomes (DePasquale and Gunnar, 2020; Yamamoto et al., 2016). Thus, potency in home interactions shape and facilitate developmental progression (Frongillo et al., 2017).
In Zambia, poverty majorly contributes to the state of children. Estimates show 60% of the population live in poverty, 40% under-five children are stunted, and 6% are wasted. Mortality rate records are 64 in every 1000 live births while only 32% get to receive some form of early childhood care and education by age 6 (McCoy et al., 2017). With developmental deficits persisting later in life, there is growing interest in Zambia to mitigate negative impact through strengthening family care. Clearly, external and internal compounding factors to the family—poor nutrition, low stimulation, poverty, and burden of disease present serious threats to ECD. Others report widening child disparities as a result of family social economic status (SES) especially those exhibiting poorer health, illness impacted by HIV/AIDS leading to unresponsive parenting and child neglect (Begum, 2019; Black et al., 2020; Cohen et al., 2010). In an effort to increase optimal ECD, scholars identify substantial benefits of family involvement (Cohen and Anders, 2020; Mas et al., 2022; Popp and You, 2016). However, research on family involvement in LMICs shows inadequate and insufficient involvement and mobilization of parents, families and communities to demand access and quality in ECD (Lucas et al., 2018). Thus, availability of ECD services is infrequent in scope and inequitable in coverage (Richter et al., 2017).
Nonetheless, an upsurge for service demand for younger children from zero to three in LMICs highlights the importance of parenting as a multidimensional construct with diverse behavioral, affective, and cognitive dimensions. Parenting diversity presents itself in different funds of knowledge, skills, and experiences fostering variation in pathways of childcare within and across cultures. Parents acquire knowledge and skills for childcare from various sources—ethnic and cultural heritage, kinship networks, friendships, established institutions, communities, and resources available to them. The knowledge of newborn care, sleep patterns, toilet training, discipline, and stimulating learning provide importance and uniqueness of human parenting (Harkness and Super, 2020; Lucas et al., 2018; Richardson, 2013). Parental attributes like self-efficacy that are anchored in the ability to organize and execute courses of action sustain efforts and produces attainment (Iroegbu, 2015). Thus, high self-efficacy in parenting exert effort, perseverance in the face of difficulty, and respond resiliently to adversity. Parenting efficacy—parents’ view of their own role in the parenting process significantly influences engagement with younger children (Albanese et al., 2019; Shorey and Ng, 2021). Other studies amplify parental efficacy as an intervention point for improved child outcomes in populations with adverse experiences (Marie-Mitchell and Kostolansky, 2019).
With parental experiences at the core of ECD support, this study examined the extent to which the home and parental (parenting efficacy and parent-child interactions) factors support, nurtures and promotes ECD in rural communities. Of specific interest is culture of practice and how it relates to nurturing care and stimulation. The opportunity to explore parental support for ECD in rural communities is critical for scientific documentation of rural family dynamics and narratives facilitating nurturing care and stimulation (Madrid Akpovo and Nganga, 2018). This paper is guided by two hypotheses; first, parents in rural communities practice tenets of nurturing care and child stimulation in ways that correspond to their own parenting ethnotheories. Secondly, parents with higher scores on home measures, parenting efficacy and parent-child interactions have children with better scores on developmental outcomes.
The study is informed by the social ecology framework which views a family as an ecological construct, a system that influences child learning and development through nurturing care (Britto et al., 2017; Jager et al., 2012). Nurturing care consists of inter-related components—behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge regarding caregiving—health, hygiene care, and feeding care; stimulation—talking, singing, and playing; responsiveness—early bonding, secure attachment, trust, and sensitive communication; and safety—routines and protection from harm (Britto et al., 2017). As an overarching concept, nurturing care is supported by a large array of social contexts—from most proximal home environment, childcare, schooling, to more distal and indirect contexts like parent work, wider community, and policy influences (Britto and Ulkuer, 2012). The home facilitates a wide range of early experiences promoting developmental adaptations (Shonkoff et al., 2021a) including rapid acquisition of language, cognitive skills, and socio-emotional competencies. These competencies positively impact children’s lifelong benefits—greater achievement in later life, citizenship, involvement in community activities, and overall quality of life (Anghel and Dogaru, 2021).
Method
Research design—The quasi-experimental, mixed methodological approach was applied using quantitative and qualitative methods to capture nurturing care and child stimulation practices in order to strengthen analysis of practices supporting ECD. Qualitative data offered in-depth empirical use of funds of knowledge supporting nurturing opportunities while quantitative data captured home environment, parenting efficacy, parent-child interactive supports for ECD and child developmental outcomes.
Study site—The study was conducted in Chongwe (Kanakantapa and Kasenga areas)—a peri rural district, about 60 km from the capital city’s (Lusaka) central business district.
Participants—Purposive sampling was employed to recruit 175 families to participate in the study.
Data collection methods and instruments—Home environment (family structure and organization), parenting efficacy and parent-child interactions were collected using questionnaires, direct observations and in-depth interviews. Child outcomes were assessed quantitatively using child measures.
Assessments
Parent measures
Home Observation Measurement for the Environment (HOME) is designed to measure quality and quantity of stimulation and support available to a child as a recipient of inputs from objects, events, and transactions occurring in the home and records high alpha for internal consistency α = 0.90 (Bradley, 1994). For this study, dimensions of parental responsivity, acceptance, home organization, learning materials, family involvement, and variety of care yielded similar reliability value, α = 0.90.
Home Environment Potential Assessment (HEPA) measures the degree to which the home environment caters for the child’s psychological needs as understood within Zambian culture (Serpell, 1987). It has a set of dimensions assessing strengths and risks in physical support, emotional support, framing, individualizing, training in responsibility, idea demonstration, and intellectual capacitation. The overall internal consistency for HEPA was α = 0.91, and all HOME and HEPA subscales correlated positively, p ⩾ 0.05 and p ⩾ 0.01 respectively.
Parenting Efficacy was measured using a four-point likert scale, 18-item questionnaire. Statements described parent’s own feelings and perceptions of parenting a young child (e.g. “I am happy in my role as a parent,” “Caring for my child (ren) sometimes takes more time and energy than I have to give,”) and yielded an internal consistency value of α = 0.76.
Parent-Child Interactions were measured on a 28-item questionnaire focusing on interactive activities in cognitive, language, motor, social and emotional domains (e.g. “I spend time naming objects with my child,” “I provide small objects for child to pick,” “I praise my child for accomplishments”) and obtained reliability value of α = 0.88.
Child measures
These were conducted individually using subtests from locally developed Zambia Cognitive Assessment Tool (ZamCAT).
Alphabet knowledge—assessed using 26 letters of the alphabet presented randomly on an A4 paper and the child was expected to name and identify letters within a specified time. Scores ranged from 0 to 26 and yielded an internal consistency, α = 0.88 (56).
Pattern reasoning—measured cognition using patterns and required children to identify patterns with increasing difficulty. Scores ranged from 0 to 32 with an internal consistency of α = 0.94 (56).
Fine motor abilities—assessed by copying from given stimuli (writing), threading, buttoning, and putting stones in a cup. Scores ranged from 0 to 11, yielded α = 0.84 (58) internal consistency.
Receptive language—measured using a locally adapted version of Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) Dunn and Dunn (1997). Four pictures are presented and children were expected to choose a picture corresponding to the spoken word. Scores ranged from 0 to 30 and an internal consistency of α = 0.73 (57).
Attention skills—assessed using pencil tapping test, a simple, game-like activity where children must remember and apply rules of tapping. Scores ranged from 0 to 20 with α = 0.83 (56) internal consistency.
Procedure
The study obtained ethical approval from the University of Zambia, School of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee—IRB number 0006464 under Institutional Organizational (IORG) number 0005376. Additional clearance was obtained from Zambia Anglican Community Outreach Programme (ZACOP) ECD sites where the study was conducted. The ZACOP ECD promoters identified parents and informed them about the study. Parents who agreed to participate consented in written or orally and child assent to participate was obtained. Parent and home assessments were conducted at home, in a familiar language for approximately 50–60 minutes while child assessments were conducted at early childhood education (ECE) centers, using familiar language for approximately 40 minutes per child.
Data processing and analysis
Data were coded and cleaned for completeness. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics—frequencies (counts, proportions, and correlations), means and standard deviations. Correlations showing association between interest variables were performed. Evidence from home experiences, patterns of behaviors and practices critical for promoting ECD were identified qualitatively using emerging themes.
Sample description
Family characteristics
The 175 families, 87 (49.7%) were drawn from Kanakantapa and 88 (50.3%) from Kasenga. Average household size was 6, occupied in at least two-rooms. For children aged 3 or younger, 61% of the families had at least one, 19% had two, 1% had three, and 18.9% had none. For those aged 4–8 years, 55% reported having one, 29% had two, 5% had three, and 10.9% had none.
Parent characteristics
About 91% were alive, aged between 17 and 74 years (M = 33), 86% were married, 9% single, and 6% single by divorce or death and 91% used local language (CiNyanja). Majority were female (84%), reported relatively good health (84%), 11% fair health, 3% minor illnesses, and 3% long-term disability (epilepsy). For mother education, 10% had never been to school, 52% up to primary, 25% junior secondary, 11% senior secondary, and 2% college. Father education showed 3% had never been to school, 38% up to primary, 37% junior secondary, 17% senior secondary, and 5% college. For occupation, 30% mothers were housewives, 56% subsistence farmers, 6% traders, 6% non-skilled, and 2% skilled workers. Fathers represented 54% as subsistence farmers, 4% traders, 30% non-skilled, and 11% skilled workers.
Child characteristics
Aged between 0 and 7 (M = 3), 88 (50.3%) boys and 87 (49.7%) girls with 78 (44%) attending ECE—34 boys and 44 girls. Only 1% had disability (club foot, autism, and epilepsy).
Results
The study investigated the extent to which parents in rural communities support ECD through the application of nurturing care tenets and stimulatory behaviors in influencing early development.
Quantitative data presenting social demographics characteristics of the study sample, descriptive statistics of home and parent measures are presented. Further analyses of the relationship between home and parent interest variables and child performance in early learning obtained through correlations are presented.
Qualitative results are presented first, identifying common naturally observed parameters of ECD supports in the environments and emergent themes obtained from parent interview on their views on the most important ingredients required for a child to develop.
Table 1 below shows social demographic characteristics of participants. Distribution is by area, and child gender, majority were female parents and married, invariant SES and average household size.
Socio characteristics of parents, families, and children, N = 175.
Table 2 above shows parents’ descriptions of their understanding of caring for a child in the early developmental phase. Child health especially nutritious food was most essential and play was the least referenced.
Qualitative analysis of parent reported influences of ECD supports, N = 64.
Table 3 shows descriptive statistics for parent and home variables, with scores above the mean while child outcomes present generally lower especially for pattern reasoning and attention skills.
Descriptive statistics of home, parent, and child outcome variables.
Table 4 below shows zero-order correlations of variables measuring home environment and parent attributes.
Associations of variables measuring home and parent variables, N = 175.
Associations of variables showed positive relationships among all variables.
p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001.
Table 5 shows associations of home, parental child outcomes. All variables showed significant associations except for SES and receptive language, while pattern reason did not correlate with most of variable (HOME, parent interactions, alphabetic knowledge and ECE experience).
Associations of home environment, parental measures, and child outcome measures, n = 78.
p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001.
Discussion
Current ECD programs are increasingly focused on providing learning opportunities that translate into highest benefits for children. However, many of these programs have a bias of western models, and adopting them in contexts where recipients do not possess similar ideologies may compromise efficacy. Thus, fostering understanding of local communities, especially where there is high levels of illiteracy and lack of information on emerging trends is imperative. This paper explored ways in which parents in rural communities support ECD within the nurturing care framework by assessing home environment, childcare practices and child outcomes.
From home environment assessments, many homes were small, averaging two rooms for a household of six. Typically, one room was exclusively for parents and the other served duo purposes—living room during daytime and bedroom at night. Generally, very young children sleep with parents primarily because they are too young for the transition. This confirms other scholars’ observation that many collectivistic societies share similar patterns where infants sleep with their parents as culturally regulated behavior (Harkness and Super, 2020; Richardson, 2013). In some households, there was clear overcrowding but this practice was too common and historical to be a bother. Other common features within homesteads included a separately built room that served as a kitchen, other features included a kraal for goats and or cattle, a barn for maize, housing for birds (chickens, ducks, guinea fowls, or turkeys), a vegetable garden, a community or personal borehole/well, a rubbish pit and a pit latrine placed distantly and usually located behind the main house. The homes were initially made using mud but cement blocked structures (similar number of rooms) either completed or in process were commonly observed. All homes had large outside spaces, neatly organized and well-kept surroundings, without observable risks threatening child safety. Community leaders (headmen/women and ECD promoters) routinely inspected surroundings and encouraged hygiene for optimal child development.
From observations, many unconventional play materials that support ECD were present. For example, children played with old car tyres (for pushing), self-made swings hanging from trees, hand-made wire cars (steering and driving), grass/mud dolls (for cuddling), gathered seeds for local play games, and maize barns with stair cases to enable children climb up and down were common. These homes were variably organized in ways that promoted ECD as evidence by the above average scores obtained on measures. These ECD supports are substantiated by similar average scores on the HOME scale obtained initially and subsequently for other populations (Bradley, 1994; Caughy et al., 2002; Hsieh et al., 2011; Mooya, 2015), confirming responsiveness of parents to children’s developmental needs.
Child physical needs were adequately met. Parents reported gaining valuable insights on childcare and child health—nutrition, hygiene, safety, and sanitation from mainly two sources: under-five clinics and ECD promoters which parents implemented to enhance child survival. Food was locally available including a variety of vegetables from the gardens, seasonal fruits, maize meal, and source of proteins like groundnuts or varieties of livestock. Other food commodities that required purchasing or finances were salt, cooking oil, or hammer meal fees. Regarding eating times, children usually had three meals while adults had at least 1–2 meals. Child clothing was adequate, each child was reported to have least at three pairs of clothes (one extra for special occasions—i.e. church), a pair of shoes/slippers, and beddings. Parents also reported that all children were in a secure and safe shelter.
It was observed that home environments provided a variety of opportunities for interactions that socially stimulated children as evidenced by the above average scores in the social emotional domains. These social activities were primarily the responsibility of parents for very young infants (below 1 year) and largely for siblings and or extended family for children over a year. This was a commonly practiced community childcare practice where a parent would leave a child/children under the care of a neighbor. This meant that the individual caring for the child ensured all parameters of childcare were addressed in the absence of the parent. As a common feature, children were also given responsibility by adults in the community (e.g. picking vegetables, drawing water from the well or being sent to buy something or call someone).
Parents reported childcare practices that were embedded within the overarching principles of nurturance care—health care, love and security, protection from danger, opportunities to learn, and nutrition for a child to grow physically, mentally, and socially (Black, 2020; Britto et al., 2017; DePasquale and Gunnar, 2020). Majority of parents perceived childcare support to be principally anchored on child survival. This is evident from the qualitative findings where all parent identified child health through provision of nutritious food as critical to child survival. This is in line with studies that have highlighted importance of food security for ECD (Krafft and El-Kogali, 2021; Yousafzai et al., 2016). Parents indicated several accessible foods that are high in energy and nutrition value viariations of porridge (a mixture of maize meal with either soya, groundnut, milk) especially for children. Other foods include fish, beans, vegetables, nshima (local staple food made from maize meal), Irish/sweet potatoes, and meats. Similarly, hygiene and sanitation also ranked high in parents hierarchy for ECD potency. This finding could relate to the many family strengthening programs implemented in the area where nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation are prioritized topics. Parents reported to learn from clinics and regular supports from ECD promoters. Each family with a child in ECD phase had an assigned ECD promoter who frequently visited parents to psychoeducate them on different aspects regarding optimal ECD.
According to parents, childcare effort was significantly related to progeny through preservation of lineage and family name. Procreation and care thereof was perceived as the only sure way of preserving a family. This practice was more common among grandparents who willingly cared for their grandchildren for the sake of family name. The finding that parents identified nurturing care as teaching children values of respect, obedience, responsibility higher than ECE especially that both communities had active centers was unexpected. This finding can be explained from a perspective that values and social responsibility are key social constructs that premieres many collectivistic societies (Jukes et al., 2018) and is identified as a form of intelligence (Mundy-Castle, 1974; Serpell, 2017). Thus, parents priming children in social value (respect, obedience, responsibility) emergence appears more essential for living (Serpell, 2019). Some parents said, “for me, teaching them values of life, respect for others prepares them for life” (48, Male). Another one said, “teaching them how to live with people is the basis of all learning” (62, Female), “these life values like home chores, respect, no fighting is the only course in life that ensures good life whether you are working or in a marriage” (53, Female).
With childcare knowledge, the study found that many parents, this knowledge did not translate into actual practice. Many parents identified financial constraints as a major challenge hindering the purchase of materials that support child stimulation. Despite many objects in environment that stimulate child learning being observed, parents appeared limited on how to apply these objects for stimulation. To exemplify, farming is the main livelihood activity, and parents introduced children to its significance—survival. Farming activities like selecting seeds or grains for planting and produce for storage were not considered as developmental opportunities for child motor and coordination skills. The use of unconventional play artefacts were not considered as stimulating, but viewed as child play to pass-time. Nonetheless, parents were open to the idea of implementing inexpensive, available resources to promote ECD. This addressed the perception that one needs finances to implement learning activities (e.g. buying crayons, pencils, dolls, shapes, alphabet letters, and books). In the absence of conventional learning materials, parents could use house utensils—spoons, cups, plates, bottles, bottle tops for counting, finger writing on the ground or use of charcoal and firewood for drawing or writing on concrete surfaces. Parents reported that these ideas were often blurred by formal schooling requirements. The current study findings contribute to addressing alternative child stimulatory materials to be implemented in less-resourced communities. The focus on formal education requirements and use of Westernized, inaccessible materials has been reported to place similar demands on parents who fail to adjust (Madrid Akpovo and Nganga, 2018; Nelson et al., 2018).
Parents identified play as a way to nurture and stimulate children. It appears to be a common practice that children play by themselves or with siblings and not necessarily with parents. Like other studies, this study re-echoes critical role of siblings and other community members as agents for nurturing ECD in collectivistic societies (Chansa-Kabali et al., 2014; Mooya, 2015). This study supports other studies emphasizing the need to include indigenous perspective in the interpretation of behavioral phenomena in order to construct conceptual behavioral processes and perhaps materials that are locally accessible and originating from within the culture (Roopnarine and Davidson, 2015).
With contextual challenges like illiteracy and compromised resource, parents desired to raise successful and independent children through their “trusted” caregiving practices as evidenced by high scores of parenting efficacy. Opportunities for learning begin with household chores and later extend to school. “If a child is able to manage household tasks, then they are ready for learning, because we all start our learning from home” (54, Female). Parents clearly identified separation of learning opportunities between home and school. In homes without a child in ECE, school-related learning activities like letter naming or writing were irrelevant and absent. This trend appears common, as children reach school age, responsibility for teaching is transferred to the school (Chansa-Kabali et al., 2014). Additionally, siblings and neighbors actively participate in support activities that enhance child learning at home, providing a sustainable alternative to practical caregiving supports for ECD. This is supported by observed higher scores for variety of care in the home measure confirming the common value of community in raising a child.
Significant positive associations of home and parent variables with child scores confirms support for early learning. Parental efficacy, parent-child interactions and child outcomes’ positive associations confirm the significance of parental understanding of their own role in creating opportunities for children to learn (Puglisi et al., 2017). Some parent-child interactions that stimulated ECD included routinely performed activities like games, singing and storytelling.
Despite presence of stimulatory behaviors including ECE, the study generally recorded lower but variant child developmental scores. Some explanation for low child scores include lack of deliberate focus to teach academic skills to children at this age, learner and teacher absenteeism, general lack of parent appreciation of ECE, lack of qualified teachers and dependency on unpaid community volunteers. Findings show that children performed poorly on particular measures like pattern reasoning and attention skills. This trend is generally observed in other studies and a plausible explanation could be that parents and teachers are less likely to engage children in activities that demand such skills (Matafwali and Chansa-Kabali, 2017). These results showed positive linkages between attending ECE, child, parent and home scores. Children enrolled in ECE had parents scoring higher on parenting efficacy, parent-child interactions, and home measures including SES. While some studies report differences in SES as a factor in receptive language (Hart and Risley, 1996), this study found SES to insignificantly associate with receptive language. This could be explained by invariant use of ciNyanja as familiar and language of use at home and school, creating little variability.
Implications and conclusions
The significance of ECD programs for later adaptability cannot be overemphasized. This study validates the significance of home and parental factors in ECD regardless of context. These findings are pertinent for rethinking ECD programing to address childcare practices and engage parents to be consciously aware of the impact of their caregiving practices. Enhancing parental knowledge, understanding and implications of childcare practices and incorporating available resources is essential. Childcare practices can be contextualized, redefined and expanded with interventions that include use of locally available and accessible materials, and engaging child social networks (i.e. siblings). At ECE level of intervention, increasing localized teaching and learning materials, parental buy-in for ECE, teacher qualification would enhance ECE functionality and child benefits. While benefits of ECE are clear in many respects, continuously sharing such ideologies with parents could be a way to increase the efficacy of ECD programing. As a way to equip parents, documenting local resources, ways of stimulation and impact on developmental influences can be helpful for parents to not only make associations but also implement. These tools and skills could advance contribution to ECD especially in less-resourced rural communities. Another practical way is recognizing valuable experiences like variety exhibited in childcare to include significant others in the social ecology that benefit ECD.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Many Thanks to the African Early Childhood Network for the fellowship and supporting this work. I thank the Zambia Community Outreach Programs (ZACOP) for availing their project sites and deeply indebted to the families and children who participated in the study.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research project was made possible with financial support from African Early Childhood Network.
