Abstract:

Introduction:
Developmental difficulties in early life are associated with low school readiness and poorer academic performance (Montes et al., 2012; Romano et al., 2010). Early development is largely shaped in the family environment through parent-child interaction. The quality of the family environment reflects the conditions for adequate stimulation of the child. Parental stimulation provides opportunities for children to develop cognitive skills by engaging in activities such as reading books and telling stories. A quality home environment with sufficient stimulation can provide children with a safe environment to support learning and adaptive behaviour (Yang et al., 2021). A lack of stimulation at an early age leads to deficits in a child's executive function and intellectual development before they enter primary school (Gibbs & Forste, 2014; Fay-Stambach et al., 2014).

Methods:
Participants consisted of 105 mothers (MMother's Age = 32.44 years; SDMother's Age = 5.02) of 49 boys and 56 girls aged 25-40 months (MChild's Age = 32.92 months; SDChild's Age = 4.77). Developmental functioning was assessed using the Screening of Psychomotor Development 11 (S-PMV11), which is the part of 10 screening tools used in Slovakia to monitor the development of psychomotor function and screen for developmental disorders in primary paediatric care. Developmental functioning as a section of the S-PMV11 contains 20 items to which respondents answer 'yes' or 'not yet'. The child's level of stimulation was assessed by answering 'yes' or 'no' to six stimulating activities in the last three days: reading books or looking at pictures, telling stories; singing songs; taking the child outside; playing with the child; naming, counting or drawing with the child. Simple linear regression and correlation analysis were used.

Results:
Parental stimulation was positively and moderately strongly (β = 0.435) associated with developmental functioning and explained 18.9% of its variability (R2 = 0.189). The results of the simple linear analysis showed that performing one stimulating activity increased the level of developmental functioning by 2.6 points (B = 2.647). The stimulation activities that showed the strongest associations with developmental functioning were reading books, telling stories and naming, counting or drawing. Correlational analyses indicated that parental stimulation activities, namely taking the child outside and playing with the child were not significantly associated with developmental functioning.

Discussion:
Child stimulation is an important protective maintenance for optimal developmental functioning. Our findings suggest that parents should provide adequate support for their children and create a family environment that is conducive to children's development. Improving developmental functioning through stimulating activities at an early age may lead to an easier adaptation of the child when entering pre-school and primary education. The results presented refer to the population of children without severe neurodevelopmental disorders.

Acknowledgements:
The study was supported by VEGA project: 1/0534/22: Psychometric properties and validity of the Screening of Psychomotor Development (S-PMV) as a monitoring method for early detection of developmental difficulties in children.

Keywords:

Parental stimulation, developmental functioning, early childhood, developmental screening.