Description

What we know about child development is primarily based on children living in urban areas. However, rural children, who represent 12% of all children under the age of 6 in Iowa, face unique challenges compared to their peers living in urban areas. For example, young children living in rural areas fall behind in their cognitive development, such as language development, even before they enter formal schooling. Yet, not all rural children are behind! And rural children can be successful in school and beyond. This work aimed to identify factors that can hurt or help development of rural children. The project focused on both biological (e.g., premature birth) and environmental (e.g., parental mental health, parental stress and parental socioeconomic status) factors that might relate to child outcomes. The project pinpointed significant associations of prematurity, but also of parental socio-economic status, parental mental health and stress to early language skills of 3- to 5-year-old children living in rural counties of Iowa. A focus on preschool years is important because these are years where interventions can have the biggest impact. Through online sessions conducted remotely, rural families were asked questions about parental mental health and stress, parent-child daily activities, parental epistemologies about child development. By pinpointing the aspects of rural children’s early lives that increase or decrease their risk for school readiness, this work hopes to inform early prevention and intervention efforts aimed at improving rural children’s future life outcomes.  

Learn more about Dr. Demir-Lira’s Development, Experience, and Neurocognition Lab. 

Resources, Media, & Publications

Presentations:

Nelson PM, Scheiber F, Laughlin HM, Demir-Lira ÖE. Comparing Face-to-Face and Online Data Collection Methods in Preterm and Full-Term Children: An Exploratory Study. Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 28;12:733192. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.733192. PMID: 34777114; PMCID: PMC8581355. 

Nelson, P., Scheiber, F., Momany, A., Ryckman, K. & Demir-Lira, Ö. E. (2021, July) The role of literacy activities in preterm and full-term children’s vocabulary acquisition. Talk presented at the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) Conference, Philadelphia, PA, United States. 

Nelson, P., Scheiber, F., Momany, A., Ryckman, K. & Demir-Lira, Ö. E. (2020, April) Interacting roles of gestational age and parent-child interactions in preterm children’s verbal comprehension. Talk presented at the SRCD Virtual Biennial Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Nelson, P., Scheiber, F., Momany, A., Ryckman, K. & Demir-Lira, Ö. E. (2020, October) Sources of plasticity in preterm children’s vocabulary acquisition: Interacting roles of gestational age and parent-child interactions. Talk presented at the Many Paths to Language Conference, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. 

Publications:

Scheiber, F., Nelson, P., Momany, A., Ryckman, K., Demir-Lira, E. (2020, October). Parental mental health, socioeconomic status, and children’s verbal abilities. Talk presented at the Many Paths to Language Conference, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. 

Scheiber, F., Demir-Lira, Ö. E., Momany, A., Nelson, P., & Ryckman, K. (2020, July 13-17) The role of parental mental health in children's language outcomes. Poster to be presented at the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) Conference, Philadelphia, PA, United States. 

Scheiber, F., Momany, A., Nelson, P., Ryckman, K., Demir-Lira, E. (2020, June). Parental mental health, socioeconomic status, and children’s academically relevant skills. Poster presented at the APS Poster Showcase, Chicago, IL, United States. 

Nelson, P., Scheiber, F., Momany, A., Ryckman, K. & Demir-Lira, Ö. E. (2020, June) Sources of plasticity in preterm children’s vocabulary acquisition: Interacting roles of gestational age and parent-child interactions. Poster presented at APS Poster Showcase, Chicago, IL, United States.