Parental optimism & self-efficacy: Associations with cognitive development in children born preterm

<p>An increasing emphasis has been placed on identifying factors that facilitate and support optimal early development of susceptible children. Parents' cognitions have been documented as serving an important function in parent-child interactions, two parental cognitions that were investigated for this research. Optimism has proven to be associated with better psychological and physical adjustment to stressful events while high parental self-efficacy is strongly associated with the capacity to provide an adaptive, motivating, and nurturing environment for raising a child. The relationship between specific parental characteristics and the cognitive abilities of preterm pre-school aged children has not been studied in depth. Participants were 58 preterm children and 44 full term children who took part in a neurocognitive assessment, along with their parents who completed four questionnaires assessing parental optimism and self-efficacy. Parental optimism and self-efficacy did not demonstrate a significant association with cognitive outcome in this preschool-age cohort. However, a significant association was found between parent ratings of optimism of Extremely Low Birth children and their child's Special Nonverbal Composite.</p>