Mind and behavior · 1 min read
Nurse visits left modest improvements at age five
At age five, behavior and parenting improved slightly. The main analysis found no language advantage, although small signals appeared among complete cases.
The study, in plain language
The support program, called right@home, began home visits during pregnancy and continued until the child turned two. It was offered to Australian families facing several adversity factors, in addition to usual health services. Follow-up revisited those families when the children were four and five.
At age five, some child-behavior measures modestly favored the program. There were also small differences in parenting warmth and mothers’ confidence in their parenting. In the main analysis, which adjusted for missing data, direct language and learning tests showed no advantage. A complete-case analysis found small favorable signals on some language measures, so the result also depends on how missing data were handled.
The key idea
At age five, home visits left small differences in behavior and parenting, but not in direct language and learning tests.
Something to think about
Early support can show up in some areas but not others: here, parenting and behavior changed somewhat, but test scores did not. Which part of family life do you think is most important to measure?
The original study
Nurse home visiting to improve child and maternal outcomes: 5-year follow-up of an Australian randomised controlled trial
Source under CC BY 4.0. English adaptation and explanation by PaperFlow, with AI assistance. The text has been reorganized for a general audience; it is not the complete paper and does not imply endorsement by its authors.
One study alone does not represent a field's consensus. Educational content does not replace professional advice. Report a possible error.