Parents and Children Making Connections-Highlighting Attention (PCMC-A) is an eight-week, family-centered dual-generation intervention program designed at the University of Oregon to facilitate attention and school readiness skills in pre-school children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. The current study evaluated the efficacy of PCMC-A on enhancing neural processes for language. Children aged 3-5 years and their parents were randomly assigned to participate in PCMC-A or Head Start Alone. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were elicited by semantically and syntactically correct and anomalous sentences both prior and after the completion of PCMC-A. Results indicated that children participating in both groups exhibited maturation of neural processes for semantics over the eight-week time period. However, children participating in PCMC-A exhibited a different pattern of development, a transition toward more adult-like semantic processing, compared to children in Head Start Alone. This finding suggests different patterns for maturation of neural mechanisms for semantics as a function of intervention. Results of linear regressions also indicated greater change in nonverbal IQ and receptive language performance on standardized assessments were associated with greater change in mean amplitudes for neural indices of both semantic and syntactic processing, relationships not evident in the Head Start Alone group. These results revealed positive impacts of PCMC-A on neural processes for language in preschool children from lower SES households.
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