Title

Informing Mothers about the Benefits of Conversing with Infants: Experimental Evidence from Ghana

Author(s)

Pascaline Dupas Pascaline Dupas ( Princeton University, NBER, and CEPR)

Camille Falezan Camille Falezan (MIT)

Seema Jayachandran Seema Jayachandran (Princeton University)

Mark Walsh Mark Walsh (Stanford University)

Abstract

Despite the well-established importance of verbal engagement for infant language and cognitive development, many parents in low-income contexts do not converse with their infants regularly. This paper reports on a randomized field experiment evaluating a low-cost intervention designed to boost verbal engagement with infants. The intervention entails showing recent or expectant mothers a 3-minute informational video and providing them with a themed wall calendar. Six to eight months later, mothers who participated reported a stronger belief in the benefits of verbally engaging with infants, more frequent parent-infant conversations, and more advanced language and communication skills of their infants. Treatment effects on objective measures of parent-child conversation (from a recording device) and infant language and cognitive skills (from surveyors’ observations) were statistically insignificant but consistently positive. We find larger effects on objectively measured parent-child conversation immediately after the intervention, suggesting scope for a larger long-term effect had the behavior change stuck more. The intervention’s potential for low-cost implementation via health clinics makes it a promising strategy for early childhood development in low-income contexts, particularly if complemented by efforts to support habit formation.

Creation Date

2024-01

Section URL ID

Paper Number

324

URL

https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/wp324_Jayachandran_infant_speech.pdf

File Function

Jel

C93, D19, I21

Keyword(s)

Ghana, early childhood development; infant-directed speech; human capital; information intervention

Suppress

false

Series

3