Infant and Child Development Inf. Child Dev. 8: 49–62 (1999) Early Cognitive Development and Parental Education Elizabeth Roberts a , Marc H. Bornstein b , Alan M. Slater a, * and Jacqueline Barrett a a University of Exeter, Exeter, UK b National Institute of Child Health, USA Relations between cognitive development in infancy and early childhood, and parental education were examined. Previous re- search has found little association between measures of the parenting environment, including parental education and socio- economic status (SES), and cognitive development in infants and children under 2 years of age. However, the earlier studies may not have reliably measured individual differences in cognitive abilities, thus, there is uncertainty as to what age elements in the parental environment affect cognitive development. Seventy-six infants were tested on a range of cognitive tasks at 3-month intervals between the ages of 9 and 18 months. Information on parental education (a component of SES) was collected. Seventy- one of the children returned at 27 months and completed the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Mental Scale, which was used as an outcome measure for the earlier tasks. The findings present a clear indication that cognitive development in early childhood is affected by the parenting environment, at least from as early as 12 months. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: cognitive development; early childhood; infancy; parental education; prediction Several years ago it was established that childhood intelligence is moderately predictable from infancy, as shown by various visual information processing measures, especially habituation and novelty responsiveness (Bornstein and Sigman, 1986; McCall and Carriger, 1993; Slater, 1995; Bornstein et al., 1997). However, it has also been argued that these measures are no more predictive than variables that make up the infant’s background, in particular parental socio-economic status (McCall, 1977). Socio-economic status (SES) is normally measured using information about family occupation, education and income (Hernandez, 1997). The question of whether and when environmental condi- tions influence child competencies is a central one for studies of infant status, individual differences and their development. It is known that parental SES relates to parents’ beliefs and behaviours (Ninio, 1988). The present study * Correspondence to: Psychology Department, Washington Singer Laboratories, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK. Tel.: +44 1392 264595; fax: +44 1392 264623; e-mail: a.m.slater@exeter.ac.uk CCC 1522–7227/99/010049-14$17.50 Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 22 May 1998 Accepted 22 October 1998