Parental developmental screening with CARE: A pilot hybrid assessment and intervention with vulnerable families in Colombia

Poverty and scarcity of resources make children in low-and-middle-income countries at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. Despite a near-universal interest in risk reduction, effective interventions like enhancing reading skills in parents to diminish developmental delay remain elusive for the great majority of vulnerable families. We undertook a efficacy study for parental use of a booklet called CARE for developmental screening of children between 36 to 60 months old (M = 44.0, SD = 7.5). All participants (N = 50), lived in vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods in Colombia. The study followed a pilot Quasi-Randomised Control Trial design (i.e., control group participants assigned based on non-random criteria) of parent training with a CARE intervention group compared to a control group. Data was analyzed using two-way ANCOVA for sociodemographic variables’ interaction with follow-up results and one-way ANCOVA to evaluate the relations between the intervention and post-measurement of developmental delays and cautions and other language related-skills outcomes, while controlling for pre-measurements. These analyses indicated that the CARE booklet intervention enhanced children’s developmental status and narrative skills (developmental screening delay items, F(1, 47) = 10.45, p = .002, partial η2 = .182; narrative devices scores, F(1, 17) = 4.87, p = .041, partial η2 = .223). Several limitations (e.g., sample size) and possible implications for the analysis of children’s developmental potential are discussed and considered for future research, along with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the closure of preschools and community care centers.