In the Baby’s First Bites study, we investigated whether it is possible to increase the amount of vegetables young children eat by giving their parents advice concerning the what (repeatedly exposing your child to the taste of vegetables) and how (listening to your child’s signals) of complementary feeding from the very first bites. We found no effects on the child’s vegetable intake or eating behavior; the advice on the how positively influenced the way mothers responded to their child during meals. Future research should focus on whether providing advice to specific subgroups like parents of “picky eaters” is more effective.

This study is one of the first to test causal pathways to child maltreatment. Specifically, the project focuses on the role of the home environment. I will test whether household chaos causes parenting problems and child maltreatment and whether the effect of household chaos is particularly strong for individuals with high levels of sensory sensitivity. In addition, self-regulation, negative emotions, and physiological stress will be tested as mediators of the effect of household chaos on maltreatment. To test the causal association, two studies are proposed. In the first study, participants will be asked to take care of a very realistic infant simulator (that cries, makes breathing, burping, giggling, and suckling sounds) in a simulated home environment, while chaos is manipulated and infant behavior is kept constant. I will test whether increased chaos leads to more parenting problems and maltreatment of the infant simulator and whether decreased chaos diminishes parenting problems and maltreatment. The second study tests whether decreased chaos results in increased parenting quality and decreased child maltreatment in actual parents. Again, the moderating role of sensory sensitivity will be investigated. A group of high-risk parents will receive an intervention aimed at decreasing chaos. The intervention consists of four weekly coaching sessions for the mother, aimed at increasing order in the household (noise, material, organizational). In addition, participants will receive text messages and cards with reminders and tips. The results of this study will contribute to improved (preventive) interventions aimed at reducing child maltreatment. Finally, by incorporating an experimental research design in the field of child maltreatment, I aim to initiate a new research tradition to unravel causal processes of child maltreatment and increase our understanding of this poorly understood problem.

The aims of the proposed project are to investigate the role of text characteristics and childrens reading skills in their ability to learn from informational texts, and to develop guidelines for improving learning from such texts in educational settings. Texts are important educational tools and childrens ability to read and learn from them is essential to their success in school and beyond. Report after report shows that a large number of elementary school children has difficulty comprehending what they read, especially when it concerns informational texts. Indeed, in grade 4 (groep 6) when instruction switches from using mostly narrative texts to using mostly informational texts, many students experience a dramatic decrease in comprehension scores, the so-called fourth grade slump. In the proposed project, we intend to identify characteristics of informational texts that assist children at grades 2-4 (groepen 4-6) in comprehending and learning from them, determine the role of individual differences in childrens higher-order comprehension skills, and investigate possible interactions between text characteristics and children reading skills and strategies. Based on the results we intend to develop and test guidelines for constructing informational texts that can be used by our societal partners as well as by other educational organizations to improve childrens learning and, moreover, to foster the development of effective higher-order comprehension skills. The research will be translational -connecting theoretical models to concrete educational practice-, innovative in its use of eye-tracking and other cognitive-science methods, and multi-institutional through collaboration with colleagues from the Netherlands and the United States.

This study shows that making a digital library freely available at home is not powerful enough to develop digital reading routines in beginning readers. An effective intervention in one context (classroom) does not lead to the same positive results when applied in another context (at home). Evidence-based interventions are like the seed in the biblical parable of the sower (Luke 8:5-8). That seed only bears fruit if it falls on fertile soil. Not every soil is fertile, as our study shows. This should also be taken into account in education policies of the government.

Not everyone is equally susceptible to environmental influences such as negative life events or rearing effects. Temperamental and genetic factors that are often considered risk factors may however actually be susceptibility factors reflecting heightening susceptibility to the effects of the environment in general, with adverse contexts fostering negative outcomes, and supportive contexts promoting positive outcomes. Based on the evidence generated so far, I have chosen temperamental reactivity and dopamine-related DRD4 and COMTmet158val polymorphisms as candidate susceptibility factors, for children as well as for parents. In the proposed study I test whether these susceptibility factors operate independently, which of them shows the largest effects, and/or whether they operate in interaction. Two projects address differential susceptibility in parents and children: a correlational project and an experimental intervention project. The Correlational Project tests differential susceptibility in the negative direction, that is, the influence of daily hassles on parental responsiveness (for parents), and of unresponsive parenting on externalising behaviour (for children). The Intervention Project tests whether susceptible individuals are more affected by positive environmental support, that is in the case of parents by video-feedback intervention aimed at enhancing parental responsiveness and sensitive discipline, and in the case of children by increased parental responsiveness and positive discipline strategies that result in decreased behaviour problems. For the first time the theory of differential susceptibility is experimentally tested in a complete randomized control trial, with intervention and control groups stratified according to genetic and temperamental susceptibility factors. What works for whom, and why? That is an unresolved and crucial issue in parent training and therapeutic intervention more generally. More insight into differential susceptibility and differential effectiveness of parenting interventions has important implications for family (and childcare) policy. A better fit between target group and intervention will result in a more effective use of resources for parent training.