Video Abstract: Infant Mental Health Home Visiting Mitigates Impact of Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences on Toddler Language Competence: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Young children whose parents experienced childhood adversity are at risk for developmental problems (including social, emotional, and cognitive domains) across the lifespan. Parenting behavior may be a mechanism linking parental adversity and subsequent child language development problems, and is a target for intervention. Utilizing a randomized controlled trial, we demonstrated that a relationship-focused home visiting program, Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH-HV), mitigates impact of maternal ACEs on toddler language. Parental adversity can impact development across generations, but intervention can mitigate this negative effect; IMH-HV and other relational interventions should be available to those at risk.