Association between early childhood development and shared play and reading

The impact of shared parental/family interaction on domains of early childhood development beyond language is unclear. We investigate the association between parental/family interaction (through shared reading/playing) and early childhood development at age 2. We used data from the 4th wave of a cohort following mothers and babies born between July and August 2020, named IRACEMA-Covid. Information on parental/family interaction was self-reported, and domains of child development were measured using the Caregiver Reported Early Development Instrument (CREDI). Descriptive statistics were performed using means and standard deviations. Inferential analyses were conducted using x2, Kruskal-Wallis, and crude and adjusted linear regression models. Family/parental interaction, as represented by playing/reading together, was associated with better development not only in language (0.81), as measured by CREDI, but also in cognition (0.62), motor (0.69), socio-emotional (0.80), and overall (0.75) domains. The results suggest that promoting shared play and reading in child intervention programs would be beneficial.