| In 1981, the state of Missouri created Parents as Teachers, a statewide, early education program that focuses on teaching parents how to be their child's first teacher. Since the implementation of Parents as Teachers (PAT), numerous studies have concluded that children whose parents participate in the program benefit academically well into the grade school years. However, since the purpose of the program is to educate parents, studies should also be conducted to determine how the program affects parents.; Employing a pre-test/post-test survey methodology, this study seeks to determine whether parents participating in the Lee's Summit, Missouri R-7 School District gained any knowledge of infant development after participating in the program for one school year. Analysis of Variance was applied to determine whether differences among how much parents learned could be attributed to demographic differences. Following that, telephone interviews were conducted with participants to give them the opportunity to discuss what they thought of the program.; Overall, this study finds that the parents participating in the program do gain knowledge about the program after participating for one school year. Parents who were enrolled for the first time experienced statistically significantly changes between the pre-test and the post-test than did those who had been enrolled previously. When analyzed by demographics, this study finds that those parents under the age of 30 and those parents with household incomes of more than {dollar}50,000 experienced statistically significant changes than did their counterparts.; Telephone interviews, however, indicated that most parents felt they benefited from participating in the program. The Parents as Teachers educators not only taught parents how interact with their children in a way that benefits the child's current developmental stage, they also provided support to the parents. |
