ABSTRACT Objective This study examines the impacts of a monthly unconditional cash transfer on parenting behaviors among low‐income mothers of four‐year‐olds. Background Prior research has demonstrated that low income is negatively associated with the quality of parenting and the amount of time mothers spend engaging in enriching activities with their children. Yet, whether unconditional cash transfers to families with low incomes will improve these dimensions of parenting is unclear. Method Families in this study are participants in the Baby's First Years (BFY) study, an RCT in which mothers received either a monthly high‐cash gift ($333) or a monthly low‐cash gift ($20) for the first 76 months of their child's life. Analyses include intent‐to‐treat (ITT) estimates of the cash gift on pre‐registered parenting outcomes measured when the focal child was 4 years old, including observed quality of parent–child interactions during a video play task, maternal reports of child meal and sleep routines, time spent on mother–child activities, money spent on child‐specific goods ( = 886 mothers). Results Pre‐registered measures of parenting outcomes did not differ between mothers receiving the high‐cash gift and mothers receiving the low‐cash gift. Exploratory analyses showed that children of mothers who received the high‐cash gift were more likely to have regular sleep routines, to have spent more money on toys, and less money on electronics than children of mothers receiving the low‐cash gift. Conclusion A moderate, monthly unconditional cash transfer alone may be insufficient to make sustained and meaningful improvements in mothers' time spent in enriching activities, child‐specific expenditures, or in the quality of mother–child interactions with four‐year‐olds in families with low income.

This study investigated how low-income parents with infants and toddlers make differing caregiving investments depending on neighborhood conditions. It leverages a randomized controlled trial in which 1,000 low-income mothers and newborns (Mage = 27; 42% Black; 41% Hispanic; 10% White; 2018-2022) received unconditional cash transfers of $333 or $20 per month. Mothers' addresses were linked with census tract-based measures of "opportunity" for economic mobility. Parents in -lower-opportunity neighborhoods who received larger cash transfers engaged their child in more enriching activities and purchased more child-focused goods than parents who received the cash transfers in higher-opportunity neighborhoods (effect sizes of .12 and .09 more as opportunity decreased by 1 SD). These results suggest that parents compensate for challenging neighborhood conditions with increased caregiving investments.

Early childhood poverty is associated with neurodevelopmental differences, but causal evidence linking income to brain development is sparse. In the present study, we examine whether four years of monthly unconditional cash transfers to mothers experiencing low income cause differences in their preschoolers' brain activity. Shortly after giving birth, mothers were randomized to receive $333/month or $20/month for the first several years of their child's life as a part of the Baby's First Years study. Here we report on the impact of these cash gifts on resting brain electric activity recorded at 4 years of age as measured by electroencephalography (EEG). We find no impact on our primary preregistered outcome (an aggregated index of mid-to-high-frequency brain activity) or our secondary preregistered outcome frontal gamma power. We did find, in additional exploratory analyses that were part of our pre-registered analytic plan, that preschoolers in the high-cash gift group had higher alpha power compared to those in the low-cash gift group. There were no differences in theta, beta, or gamma power between groups. Although the primary and secondary preregistered outcomes showed no group differences our exploratory analyses provide some evidence for impacts on children's alpha power during the preschool years, although this evidence needs further investigation and replication.

This study investigated how exogenous variation in exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted biological ageing across early childhood. A sample of socioeconomically diverse pregnant women were recruited from New York City in 2019 to participate in a longitudinal study of child development (N = 93). Saliva samples were collected from infants to assess epigenetic age at 1-month postpartum. By the start of the pandemic, infants ranged in age from 0 to 9.5 months old, thus experiencing different durations of pandemic exposure in the first year of life. At 30 months, children returned to the laboratory to provide a second saliva sample (N = 52; 59% Female, 50% Hispanic). There was no evidence of large effects of pandemic exposure on trajectories of biological ageing from 1 month to 30 months.

Socioeconomic resources have long been associated with children's language development. Several proximal factors have been suggested as candidate mechanisms underlying socioeconomic disparities in language development, including differences in the home language environment and home noise levels. These experiences may in part shape auditory discrimination skills, a key component of language comprehension. To index early auditory discrimination, researchers measured brain function in relation to the detection of different sounds with an event-related potential (ERP) called the mismatch response (MMR). The current study aimed to examine associations among socioeconomic circumstances, the home language environment, home noise exposure, and the MMR in a socioeconomically, racially, and ethnically diverse longitudinal sample of 6- and 12-month-old infants. Socioeconomic circumstances were measured prenatally via parent report. The home language environment and home noise levels were measured using digital language processing devices when infants were approximately 6 months of age. The MMR was elicited during a passive auditory oddball task at two timepoints-6 and 12 months of age. Results showed that neither SES, the home language environment, nor home noise levels predicted infant MMR at either age. These findings add to a growing body of literature examining the role of distal and proximal factors in shaping infant brain activity related to language development.

Identifying and quantifying early markers of socioemotional skills, particularly within the first few years of life, remains a challenge in developmental research. This study examines whether infant resting electroencephalography (theta, alpha, beta, gamma, as well as the theta-beta ratio) at 1 month of age prospectively predicts socioemotional behavioral problems at 12 and 24 months. Data from 185 sociodemographically diverse mother-infant dyads (53.51% female; 38.92% White; 44.32% Hispanic) were included in the analysis. Results indicated that whole-brain resting brain function at 1 month of age did not significantly predict socioemotional behavioral problems at 12 months of age; however, higher whole-brain relative theta and lower whole-brain relative alpha at 1 month significantly predicted more socioemotional behavioral problems by 24 months of age. Exploratory analyses examining regional brain activity are also presented. Together, these findings suggest that resting brain activity at 1 month of age may be an early indicator of later socioemotional behavioral problems in a diverse, nonclinical sample. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examines causal impacts of unconditional cash transfers on economic hardship and key family processes that may affect children's development. The study randomized 1000 mothers of newborns, with prior-year household income below the federal poverty threshold, to receive unconditional cash transfers of $333 or $20 per month (Clinical Trial Registry number NCT03593356). Data collected approximately 12, 24 and 36 months after the child's birth show a moderate increase in household income and reductions in poverty; no statistically significant improvements in subjective economic hardship reports or quality of play with infants; and small, mostly statistically non-significant, increases in parental psychological distress and declines in mothers' relationship quality. However, mothers receiving the higher amount reported more frequently engaging in enriching child activities than mothers receiving the lower amount. Cash support may provide other benefits for families and children, but moderate support levels do not appear to address self-reported economic hardship or standard survey measures of maternal well-being. However, these results do not rule out the possibility of very small effects.

Importance:Mothers and children in low-income households are more likely to experience worse mental and physical health than those from higher-income households. Objective:To determine the effect of 4 years of monthly unconditional cash transfers on the mental health of mothers with low-income and the physical health of mothers and children. Design, Setting, and Participants:This was a parallel-group, randomized clinical trial conducted from May 2018 to July 2023. Mother-infant dyads were recruited (May 2018-June 2019) from postpartum wards in 12 hospitals in 4 cities: Omaha, Nebraska; Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota; New Orleans, Louisiana; and New York, New York. Data were analyzed from September 2023 to February 2025. Interventions:Mothers were randomly assigned to receive either a high-cash gift ($333 per month) or a low-cash gift ($20 per month) on debit cards. The cash gifts continued for the first 6 years of their children's lives. Data analyzed here were collected after 4 years of monthly transfers. Main Outcomes and Measures:Outcomes were preregistered and measured around the child's fourth birthday. Maternal outcomes included depression, anxiety, and body mass index (BMI). Child outcomes included age- and sex-adjusted BMI percentile and maternal report of child health (overall health, times sick in the past year, and presence of chronic health conditions). Results:A total of 1000 mother-infant dyads (mean [SD] maternal age, 27.0 [5.8] years) were included in this study. Among those mothers, 400 were randomly assigned to receive the $333 high-cash gift and 600 received the $20 low-cash gift on debit cards. Data were available from 891 mother-child dyads. No statistically detectable group differences were found in maternal depressive symptoms (effect size [ES], 0.04; 95% CI, -0.08 to 0.17; P = .51), anxiety (ES, 0.12; 95% CI, -0.02 to 0.25; P = .09), or BMI (ES, -0.06; 95% CI, -0.21 to 0.09; P = .42). In addition, there were no statistically detectable group differences in child BMI percentile (ES, -0.03; 95% CI, -0.17 to 0.12; P = .73) or overall child health (ES, 0.08; 95% CI, -0.07 to 0.22; P = .30). Conclusions and Relevance:Monthly unconditional cash transfers totaling approximately $15 000 over 4 years to mothers with low incomes did not improve maternal mental health, maternal or child BMI, or maternal report of children's health. These results could reflect the absence of causal connections between cash transfers and health, the possibility that impacts of early childhood income may not appear until later in life, or that an 18% increase in income is insufficient to overcome the structural vulnerabilities associated with poverty that contribute to health. Trial Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03593356.

The brain develops rapidly during the prenatal period and first two years of life, making it particularly sensitive to environmental influences. Family socioeconomic disadvantage is one environmental factor that may shape the development of brain function in infancy. However, it is unclear how brain function changes across infancy or whether prenatal family socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with age-related differences in brain function during this period. Here, we examine whether resting electroencephalography (EEG) power (theta, alpha, beta, and gamma) shows linear and/or non-linear age-related patterns across four assessments from 1 to 18 months of age (N = 165), and whether these patterns are moderated by prenatal family socioeconomic disadvantage. We find that lower-frequency (relative theta) and higher-frequency (relative alpha, beta, and gamma) power show non-linear age-related patterns during the first 18 months of life. Prenatal family socioeconomic disadvantage moderates these patterns, such that infants from lower-income families show less steep age-related decreases in lower-frequency (relative theta) power and less steep increases in higher-frequency (relative beta) power. These associations hold when adjusting for other prenatal and postnatal experiences, as well as infant demographic and health-related factors. These data suggest that lower prenatal family income is associated with age-related differences in brain function during infancy.

Developmental differences between children growing up in poverty and their higher-income peers are frequently reported. However, the extent to which such differences are caused by differences in family income is unclear. To study the causal role of income on children’s development, the Baby’s First Years randomized control trial provided families with monthly unconditional cash transfers. One thousand racially and ethnically diverse mothers with incomes below the U.S. federal poverty line were recruited from postpartum wards in 2018-19, and randomized to receive either $333/month or $20/month for the first several years of their children’s lives. After the first four years of the intervention (n=891), we find no statistically significant impacts of the cash transfers on four preregistered primary outcomes (language, executive function, social-emotional problems, and high-frequency brain activity) nor on three secondary outcomes (visual processing/spatial perception, pre-literacy, maternal reports of developmental diagnoses). Possible explanations for these results are discussed.

IntroductionScreen time can have important ramifications for children's development and health. Children exposed to greater screen time score lower on assessments of language development and tend to sleep less. However, most studies examining associations among screen time, language development, and sleep quality have focused on older children and/or have relied on subjective assessments of screen time exposure (i.e., parent report). The current study examined whether screen exposure, assessed via both maternal-report questionnaires and in-home audio recordings, was associated with differences in language development and sleep quality in infants at ~6 months of age (N = 187).MethodsMothers completed questionnaires to assess infant screen exposure, language production, and sleep quality, as well as family socioeconomic and demographic factors. The Language Environment Analysis (LENA) recorder was used to measure home screen use and the language environment.ResultsHigher family income and higher maternal education were associated with less infant screen time, as assessed by both maternal report and in-home LENA recordings. Neither measure of infant screen exposure was significantly associated with the home language environment, maternally-reported infant language production, or infant sleep quality. Maternally-reported screen exposure showed a small but significant positive correlation with LENA-derived screen exposure.DiscussionWe find no detectable association between screen exposure and differences in maternally reported language development or sleep quality in the first 6 months of life. Future studies will be needed to examine associations among screen time and subsequent infant development and health outcomes.

As cash transfer policies have gained traction in recent years, interest in how financial resources could impact fertility has also grown. Increasing an individual's purchasing power with additional economic resources, such as those provided in unconditional cash transfers, might better enable parents to meet their fertility and reproductive goals, whether those goals are to become pregnant and give birth or to avoid or terminate pregnancies. In this research note, we provide new experimental evidence of the causal impact of a monthly unconditional cash transfer on fertility-related outcomes for U.S. families with at least one young child and low incomes. We find trends of increased pregnancy after three years but no corresponding impacts on births, miscarriages, or terminations. Our findings might indicate that modest cash transfers to mothers with low incomes in the United States are unlikely to have substantial impacts on fertility.

This pre-registered study investigated the associations between prenatal stress and socioeconomic disadvantage with epigenetic aging in one-month-old infants. We hypothesized that exposure to greater maternal perceived stress, maternal physiological stress, and family socioeconomic disadvantage would be associated with accelerated epigenetic aging among infants. A socioeconomically and racially diverse sample of mothers were recruited during their last 5 weeks of pregnancy, when they completed surveys on their family income, education, and perceived stress levels, and provided a hair sample to index hair cortisol concentration. At 1-month postpartum, saliva samples were collected from their infants to assess genome-wide DNA methylation (n = 159). Epigenetic age was assessed using the Horvath, PedBE, PhenoAge, GrimAge, and DunedinPACE clocks. There was no consistent association across socioeconomic and stress factors with infant epigenetic aging. Findings are situated within effect sizes reported from previous studies, and we consider the validity of applying epigenetic clocks to infant populations. The diverging effects of family income, education, perceived stress, and physiological stress on development are considered.

Mounting evidence suggests that maternal stress is associated with infants' brain activity, but the role of maternal stress during pregnancy is not yet understood. The present preregistered investigation examines associations between prenatal maternal stress (physiological and perceived) and infant brain activity at 1 month of age. A sample of diverse mother-infant dyads (N = 160) participated (55% female; 39% White). Maternal physiological stress was not associated with infant EEG power. In contrast, higher maternal perceived stress was associated with decreased absolute theta power (β = -0.035, p = 0.042). Higher maternal perceived stress was also associated with decreased absolute (β = -0.016, p = 0.038) and relative (β = -0.047, p = 0.039) alpha power. These findings suggest that maternal perceived stress during pregnancy is associated with infant brain activity shortly after birth.

Childhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with disparities in development and health, possibly through adaptations in children’s brain function. However, it is not clear how early in development such neural adaptations might emerge. This study examined whether prenatal family socioeconomic status, operationalized as family income and average years of parental education, prospectively predicts individual differences in infant resting electroencephalography (EEG; theta, alpha, beta, and gamma power) at approximately 1 month of age (N = 160). Infants of mothers reporting lower family income showed more lower-frequency (theta) and less higher-frequency (beta and gamma) power. These associations held when adjusting for other prenatal and postnatal experiences, as well as infant demographic and health-related factors. In contrast, parental education was not significantly associated with infant EEG power in any frequency band. These data suggest that lower prenatal family income is associated with developmental differences in brain function that are detectable within the first month of life.

Economic disadvantage has often been associated with poorer performance on measures of early childhood development. However, the causal impacts of income on child development remain unclear. The present study uses data from the Baby's First Years randomized control trial to identify the causal impact of unconditional cash transfers on maternal reports of early childhood development. One thousand racially and ethnically diverse mothers residing in poverty were recruited from four U.S. metropolitan areas shortly after giving birth. Mothers were randomized to receive either a $333/month or $20/month unconditional cash transfer for the first several years of their child's life. Maternal reports of language and socioemotional development, concerns for developmental delay, and enrollment in early intervention services were collected annually at the time of the child's first, second, and third birthdays. In this registered report, we document no statistically detectable impacts of the high-cash gift on maternal reports of child development. We discuss the significance and implications of these findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Many developmental psychologists aspire to conduct research that informs interventions and policies to prevent income-related disparities in child development. Among growing researcher discussion about the value of interventions that target "structural" and resource-related correlates of income inequality and child development (e.g., housing, food, material goods, cash), rather than individual, person-centered correlates (e.g., parenting behaviors), the perspectives of mothers with low incomes may provide important context. 281 mothers with young children and low incomes rated various structural and individual interventions, framed as having minimal costs and entry barriers, for their perceived helpfulness. Analyses were pre-registered. Overall, mothers rated all interventions very highly, though they rated structural interventions as slightly more helpful than individual interventions. Mothers rated interventions they used in the past as less helpful than those they hadn't previously used. An exploratory qualitative analysis revealed mothers' desires for supports in other intervention domains beyond those addressed in our survey. Together, mothers' responses indicated that they did not see individual interventions as inherently unhelpful due to a focus on individual states, knowledge, and skills. Implications for developmental psychology and intervention science are discussed.

Black and Hispanic children have a higher likelihood of experiencing neighborhood poverty than white children. This study uses data from the Baby's First Years (BFY) randomized trial to examine whether an unconditional cash transfer causes families to make opportunity moves to better quality neighborhoods. We use Intent to Treat linear regression models to test whether the BFY treatment, of receiving $333/month (vs. $20/month) for three years, leads to moves to neighborhoods of greater childhood opportunity. Overall, we find no relation between the BFY treatment and neighborhood opportunity across time. However, we find effect modification by maternal baseline health. High-cash receipt among mothers with poor health at baseline corresponds with moves to neighborhoods of greater childhood opportunity.