The Mommy and Me Play Program: A Pilot Play Intervention for Low-Income, African American Preschool Families

Abstract

In this study the author examined the effects of a dyadic, mother-paired play intervention—The Mommy and Me Play Program—an innovative intervention program designed using a live-action modeling technique in which mothers serve as “natural helpers” to each other. By identifying natural strengths in mothers and employing opportunities for scaffolded learning, this intervention aimed to enhance mother–child play interactions and children's social and emotional competence. Fifty mother–child dyads from a single, low-income, African American, urban community were assessed in this study on measures of mother–child play interactions and children's social and emotional competency. Results from this pilot were not statistically significant, but provide important information regarding future research with this intervention program. These preliminary findings indicated that mothers with fewer play skills pre-intervention demonstrated improvement in their play skills post-intervention beyond other intervention participants; and children of those same mothers showed the greatest decrease in angry and aggressive behaviors in the classroom when compared to other participating children from pre- to post-intervention. Implications for research and practice in community-based, intervention work with low-income, ethnic-minority families are discussed.

Keywords::

• Early childhood
• play intervention
• Head Start
• African American families

Acknowledgments

The author is especially grateful to the Head Start collaborators in New York City.

Notes

This research was conducted by the author while affiliated with New York University.

^1. In the initial design of this study, a waitlist control group was also included for further comparison purposes. However, this group (n = 26) was contaminated due to participants engaging in a nationally recognized parenting program simultaneously being offered in their Head Start sites, with overlapping content and goals, called The Parenting Journey. Since multiple parents in the waitlist control group ultimately received a form of an intervention between pre-and post-test periods for this study, and because pre- and post-assessments for the group revealed notable gains across intervention outcomes for the waitlist control group, this data is considered contaminated.

Additional information

Funding

This research project was supported by a Head Start Graduate Student Research Grant awarded to the author from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.