ePALS is designed to strengthen parents and their childrens relationship and promote school readiness. The Play and Learning Series (PALS) showed improvements in parents’ language stimulation skills and children’s vocabulary and complex language skills through four nationally funded efficacy studies.
Research has shown that early parental behaviors, such as maternal responsiveness, warmth, and negativity have been associated with infant social development and mental health. The PALS program has been used to increase positive parent-baby interactions. Mothers receiving PALS (versus comparison mothers) demonstrated significant increases in multiple responsiveness behaviors that facilitate infants’ growth in social, emotional, communication, and cognitive competence.
These projects stem from our past research in child development, parent support, and the development of interactive Internet-based health-related interventions for parents of preschoolers, smoking cessation, and diabetes self management. Building upon our experience with parent training and Internet interventions, we believe that there exists a unique opportunity to provide an already proven-effective program in a very innovative manner.