Spare the rod, spoil the child: measurement and learning from an intervention to shift corporal punishment attitudes and behaviors in Grenada, West Indies.

Childrearing practices in the Caribbean and other postcolonial states have long been associated with corporal punishment and are influenced by expectations of children for respectfulness and obedience. Evidence across settings shows that physical punishment of young children is both ineffective and detrimental. Saving Brains Grenada (SBG) implemented a pilot study of an intervention based on the Conscious Discipline curriculum that aimed to build adult caregivers' skills around non-violent child discipline. We hypothesized that attitudes towards corporal punishment would shift to be negative as adults learned more positive discipline methods, and that child neurodevelopment would correspondingly improve. This report reviews the impact of monitoring and evaluation on the design and implementation of the intervention. Study 1 presents findings from the pilot study. Despite positive gains in neurodevelopmental outcomes among children in the intervention compared to controls, attitudes towards corporal punishment and reported use of it did not change. Additionally, several internal conflicts in the measures used to assess corporal punishment behaviors and attitudes were identified. Study 2 is a response to learning from Study 1 and highlights the importance for monitoring and evaluation to be data-informed, adaptive, and culturally appropriate. In Study 2, the SBG research team conducted cognitive interviews and group discussions with stakeholders to assess the content and comprehensibility of the Attitudes Towards Corporal Punishment Scale (ACP). This yielded insights into the measurement of attitudes towards corporal punishment and related parenting behavior, and prompted several revisions to the ACP. To accurately evaluate the intervention's theory of change and its goal to reduce violence against children, reliable and appropriate measures of attitudes towards corporal punishment and punishment behaviors are needed. Together, these two studies emphasize the value of continuous monitoring, evaluation, and learning in the implementation, adaptation, evaluation, and scaling of SBG and similar early childhood development interventions.

A Community-based Responsive Caregiving Program Improves Neurodevelopment in Two-year Old Children in a Middle-Income Country, Grenada, West Indies.

Many young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are at risk of developmental delays. Early child development (ECD) interventions have been shown to improve outcomes, but few interventions have targeted culturally normative violence such as corporal punishment (CP). We partnered with an existing community-based ECD organization in the LMIC of Grenada to implement a parallel controlled-trial single-blind responsive caregiving intervention that educates parents about the developing brain and teaches alternatives to corporal punishment while building parental self-regulation skills and strengthening social-emotional connections between parent and child. Parents and primary caregivers with children under age two were eligible. Allocation to the intervention and waitlist control arms was unblinded and determined by recruitment into the program. Neurodevelopment was assessed by blinded testers when each child turned age two. Primary comparison consisted of neurodevelopmental scores between the intervention and waitlist control groups (Clinicaltrials.gov registration # NCT04697134). Secondary comparison consisted of changes in maternal mental health, home environment, and attitudes towards CP. Children in the intervention group (n = 153) had significantly higher scores than children in the control group (n = 151) on measures of cognition (p = .022), fine motor (p < .0001), gross motor (p = .015), and language development (p = .013). No difference in secondary outcomes, including CP, was detected.

Muchos niños en países de renta media y baja corren el riesgo de sufrir retrasos en el desarrollo. Las intervenciones en periodos tempranos del desarrollo infantil pueden mejorar sus resultados, pero pocas de ellas abordan la violencia culturalmente normativa, como el castigo corporal. En asociación con una organización comunitaria que trabajaba en el ámbito del desarrollo infantil temprano en Granada se llevó a cabo una intervención paralela de parentalidad responsiva mediante un ensayo controlado de simple-ciego con el fin de educar a los padres sobre el cerebro en desarrollo y alternativas al castigo corporal, a la vez que les enseñaban destrezas de autorregulación y se fortalecían los vínculos socioemocionales entre padres e hijos. Para ello se eligieron padres y cuidadores primarios de niños menores de dos años. La asignación a los grupos de intervención y lista de espera de control no fue ciega, estando determinada por el reclutamiento al programa. El desarrollo neurológico fue evaluado a ciegas cuando el niño cumplía dos años. La comparación primaria constaba de puntuaciones en neurodesarrollo entre los grupos intervención y lista de espera de control (Clinicaltrials.gov registration # NCT04697134). La comparación secundaria constaba de cambios en la salud mental materna, entorno del hogar y actitudes hacia el castigo corporal. Los niños en el grupo de intervención (n = 153) tenían puntuaciones significativamente superiores a las de los niños del grupo control (n = 151) en las medidas de cognición (p = .022), motricidad fina (p < .0001), motricidad gruesa (p = .015) y desarrollo del lenguaje (p = .013). No se encontraron diferencias en los resultados secundarios, entre los que se incluía el castigo corporal.