Families with young children during the COVID-19 pandemic-The importance of family type, perceived partnership roles, parental stress, and social support for changes in the home learning environment during lockdown.

Beginning in March 2020, the lockdown precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many challenges, especially for families with young children. Many children had little or no access to institutional education. Therefore, they were even more dependent on their parents providing them with home learning activities (HLA) to support their development. We examined the adaptability of families with regard to changes in parents' provision of HLA in traditional two-parent families, single parent families, and large families compared to before the lockdown. We focused on family resources, such as a supportive distribution of roles within the partnership, or social support, as predicting factors of adaptability in N = 8,513 families with children aged 18-69 months. In addition, we considered parental stress as a further influencing factor. The cross-sectional data depicts families from a nationwide online survey, which we conducted during spring 2020 in Germany. We found that (a) all three family types offered their children more learning activities at home, albeit with slight differences between the families. However, (b) we identified differences in the factors influencing families' adaptability: Across all family types, we found slight to medium negative relations between adaptability and parental stress. The relations were most evident in large families. Furthermore, social support exhibits somewhat positive relations to the adaptability of large families. For adaptability in single-parent families, gender differences were initially evident. Among single fathers, the change in parental HLA was stronger than among single mothers. However, this relation disappeared when we took parental stress and social support into account. For traditional two-parent families and single parents, our analyses revealed (c) barely significant relations between the investigated predictors and changes in HLA during lockdown. Overall, our study confirms that high stress limits the adaptability of providing HLA in families and that social support mitigates negative relations between stress and the provision of HLA, especially in large families. In order to develop effective and needs-based family support programs, it is therefore important to help parents cope with stress and provide them with low-threshold social support. The extent to which these services need to be adapted to different family types must be surveyed in more depth.

Changes in Parents' Home Learning Activities With Their Children During the COVID-19 Lockdown - The Role of Parental Stress, Parents' Self-Efficacy and Social Support.

As a result of the abrupt closures of daycare centers in Germany due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents' ability to provide learning opportunities at home became all the more important. Building on the family stress model, the study investigates how parental stress affected changes in parents' provision of home learning activities (HLA) during the lockdown, compared to before the lockdown. In addition, the study considers parental self-efficacy and perceived social support as protective factors that may play important roles in disrupting the negative effects of stress. Data stems from a nation-wide survey of 7,837 German parents of children ages 1-6 years, which was conducted in Spring 2020 during the first wave of COVID-19 infections and at a time of strict restrictions in Germany. Results revealed that parental stress was negatively related to changes in the provision of HLA. Parental self-efficacy and an intact social support system were protective of parental stress during the lockdown. Additionally, parental self-efficacy and - to a larger extend - perceived social support interacted with parental stress in the relation to changes in the provision of HLA. Specifically, self-efficacy and perceived social support acted as protective factors that buffered the negative influence of stress on parents' ability to provide educational activities for their children at home. These results have important implications for supporting families with young children during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the temporary closure of daycare centers.

[(Digital) parent-educator cooperation in preschool during Corona pandemic. Digitization boost or missed opportunity?] / (Digitale) Elternzusammenarbeit in Kindertageseinrichtungen während der Corona-Pandemie. Digitalisierungsschub oder verpasste Chance?

The closure of day-care centres as a measure to contain the corona virus presented early childhood educators with changed working conditions and opportunities to implement the continuing educational mandate. The cooperation between parents and educators, including through digital tools, plays an important role in this respect. The paper examines a) how often and of what type early childhood educators implemented digitally supported parental cooperation during the closure of day-care centres, b) which attitudes educators had towards general as well as digitally supported parental cooperation, and c) what role their qualifications, their attitudes and their perceived support through the centre played for their digital and non-digital parental cooperation during the closure of day-care centres. The study is based on a nationwide online survey of 3513 early childhood educators in day-care centres during corona closing time. The results show that educators' perceived importance of parental cooperation had a positive influence on whether or not educators had stayed in contact with the parents. Whether this contact occurs via digital media, in turn, depended on educators' attitudes towards digital media, the expected reaction of parents to this form of parental cooperation and the availability of technical support for implementing digital media in parental cooperation. The results are discussed with regard to the structural conditions of institutions and the professional skills of early childhood educators for a broad implementation of digital media in early childhood education practice.

Longitudinal Effects of the Family Support Program Chancenreich on Parental Involvement and the Language Skills of Preschool Children.

When they enter primary school children already vary significantly in their language skills, depending at least in part on their family's social background. In particular, the home learning environment plays a significant role in children's development. For that reason, early intervention programs have been developed to obviate learning difficulties and to promote health, children's development, and educational equality. The family support program Chancenreich aims to encourage the interaction and relationship between parents and children through two different course formats. The present study examines the longitudinal effects of attending the Chancenreich program and different course formats on (a) parents attending further educational services for children after completing the program, (b) children's vocabulary and level of grammar development at the age of 5 and (c) the children's vocabulary development between the ages of 3 and 5. Furthermore, we examine the relationship between family characteristics and the attendance rates of different course formats of the Chancenreich program at the first and second point of measurement. The study follows a longitudinal design with two points of measurements (T1: Mage = 41 months, T2: Mage = 68 months), and a sample size of 121 parents and their children at T2 in the intervention group and 41 parents and their children in the comparison group. Findings indicate that attendance of the Chancenreich program's courses is related to child and family characteristics and to later patterns of course participation after completing the program. Further, both children's level of vocabulary skills (PPVT) at the age of 5 and their development between the ages of 3 and 5 benefit from the parental participation in parenting skills training at the age of 3. Implications and future research on the effectiveness of family support programs are discussed.

High resolution HLA analysis reveals independent class I haplotypes and amino-acid motifs protective for multiple sclerosis.

We investigated association between HLA class I and class II alleles and haplotypes, and KIR loci and their HLA class I ligands, with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 412 European American MS patients and 419 ethnically matched controls, using next-generation sequencing. The DRB1*15:01~DQB1*06:02 haplotype was highly predisposing (odds ratio (OR) = 3.98; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 3-5.31; p-value (p) = 2.22E-16), as was DRB1*03:01~DQB1*02:01 (OR = 1.63; CI = 1.19-2.24; p = 1.41E-03). Hardy-Weinberg (HW) analysis in MS patients revealed a significant DRB1*03:01~DQB1*02:01 homozyote excess (15 observed; 8.6 expected; p = 0.016). The OR for this genotype (5.27; CI = 1.47-28.52; p = 0.0036) suggests a recessive MS risk model. Controls displayed no HW deviations. The C*03:04~B*40:01 haplotype (OR = 0.27; CI = 0.14-0.51; p = 6.76E-06) was highly protective for MS, especially in haplotypes with A*02:01 (OR = 0.15; CI = 0.04-0.45; p = 6.51E-05). By itself, A*02:01 is moderately protective, (OR = 0.69; CI = 0.54-0.87; p = 1.46E-03), and haplotypes of A*02:01 with the HLA-B Thr80 Bw4 variant (Bw4T) more so (OR = 0.53; CI = 0.35-0.78; p = 7.55E-04). Protective associations with the Bw4 KIR ligand resulted from linkage disequilibrium (LD) with DRB1*15:01, but the Bw4T variant was protective (OR = 0.64; CI = 0.49-0.82; p = 3.37-04) independent of LD with DRB1*15:01. The Bw4I variant was not associated with MS. Overall, we find specific class I HLA polymorphisms to be protective for MS, independent of the strong predisposition conferred by DRB1*15:01.

Correction: High resolution HLA analysis reveals independent class I haplotypes and amino-acid motifs protective for multiple sclerosis.

Since the publication of this article, the authors have found that the numbers of patients and controls were reversed. This study included 412 MS patients and 419 controls. This correction applies to the Abstract, the final paragraph of the Introduction, and the first paragraph of the Materials and Methods. This was entirely a reporting error and does not impact the Results or Conclusions.

The role of KIR genes and their cognate HLA class I ligands in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs), via interaction with their cognate HLA class I ligands, play a crucial role in the development and activity of natural killer cells. Following recent reports of KIR gene associations in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), we present a more in-depth investigation of KIR genes and their cognate HLA ligands on childhood ALL risk. Genotyping of 16 KIR genes, along with HLA class I groups C1/C2 and Bw4 supertype ligands, was carried out in 212 childhood ALL cases and 231 healthy controls. Frequencies of KIR genes, KIR haplotypes, and combinations of KIR-HLA ligands were tested for disease association using logistic regression analyses. KIR A/A genotype frequency was significantly increased in cases (33.5%) compared with controls (24.2%) (odds ratio [OR] = 1.57; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-2.39). Stratifying analysis by ethnicity, a significant difference in KIR genotype frequency was demonstrated in Hispanic cases (34.2%) compared with controls (21.9%) (OR = 1.86; 95% CI, 1.05-3.31). Homozygosity for the HLA-Bw4 allele was strongly associated with increased ALL risk exclusively in non-Hispanic white children (OR = 3.93; 95% CI, 1.44-12.64). Our findings suggest a role for KIR genes and their HLA ligands in childhood ALL etiology that may vary among ethnic groups.