The parents as teachers program: Results from two demonstrations

The Parents as Teachers (PAT) program is a parent-education program that in cludes home visiting and is designed to begin prenatally or at birth. Throu gh home visits, vis itors called parent educators help parents to strengthe n their parenting skills and knowledge of child development and to prepare young children for school. This article describes the PAT program and repor ts the results of evaluations of two randomized trials of PAT: (1) die Nort hern California (Salinas Valley) Parents as Teachers Demonstration, which s ewed primarily Latino parents in the Salinas Valley of California's Montere y County, and (2) the Teen Parents as Teachers Demonstration, which served adolescent parents in four counties in Southern California. The two, evaluations revealed small and inconsistent positive effects on pa rent knowledge attitudes, and behavior, and no gains in child development o r health, when anal! ses compared the experimental and control groups overa ll. However, subgroup analyses in the Salinas Valley program indicated that children in primarily Spanish-speaking: Latino families benefitted more th an either non-Latino or English-speaking Latino families, with significant gains in cognitive, communication, social, and self-help development. Subgr oup analyses in the Teen PST Demonstration indicated that families that rec eived both PST servicer, and comprehensive case management services designe d to help mothers improve their life course benefitted most. Subgroup analy ses in the Salinas Valley study suggested that children in families that re ceived more intensive services benefitted more than children whose families received less intensive services. Results from that study suggested that h ome visits produced about a one-month developmental advantage per 10 visits for participating children.