The Quality of the Home Environment During the First 2 Years of Life and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: A Study of Thai Agricultural Families

BACKGROUND: Research globally has highlighted the crucial role of the early-life home environment in shaping children's long-term development. We examined changes in the quality of the home environment during infancy and its associations with child cognitive development at age 3, focusing on Thai children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families. METHODS: Two-hundred and eighty mother-child dyads from a Thai birth cohort completed home visits in which demographic data were collected and the IT-HOME interview completed when the child was 1 and 2 years old. The Bayley-III cognitive scale was administered at 3 years old. RESULTS: Our regression analysis revealed significant associations between the quality of the home environment at 2 years (B = 0.30, SE = 0.14, p = 0.028, 95% CI: [0.03, 0.56]), but not 1 year (B = 0.11, SE = 0.11, p = 0.279, 95% CI: [-0.09, 0.32]), and cognitive development at 3 years. Furthermore, positive changes in the quality of the home environment from 1 to 2 years were significantly associated with better cognitive development (B = 0.30, SE = 0.14, p = 0.028, 95% CI: [0.03, 0.56]). CONCLUSION: Our results underscore the importance of both the immediate quality of the home environment and its improvements over time. We suggest that future studies expand to include more diverse demographic backgrounds within Thai culture and across different cultures, collect data over a longer period to capture associations at older ages, and develop targeted interventions to further understand and improve child cognitive development through an optimal home environment.