Parental sensitivity is a vital foundation for infant attachment, but cognitive stimulation brings additional benefits as children enter toddlerhood and the preschool years. Integrating these two constructs, Prime et al. (2015) have called for research into parents’ Cognitive Sensitivity (CS), defined as the extent to which parents take their children’s knowledge and cognitive abilities into account when working toward a joint goal. In response, this thesis takes a mixed-methods approach to exploring CS in several contexts (i.e., parent gender, child age, dyadic task, samples with varying family characteristics), examining important yet understudied sources of variability in CS. In sum, Chapter 1 reviews the parenting and early childhood development literature landscape, introducing key theories supporting this thesis. Chapter 2 provides an empirical review of methods and findings from three studies framing the following empirical chapters. Chapter 3 compares CS across four key contexts while Chapter 4 examines the predictive value of CS in each context as it relates to children’s cognitive and behavioural development. Chapter 5 presents a qualitative approach to CS, factoring in parents’ beliefs about literacy and learning in early childhood. Finally, Chapter 6 presents a discussion on the future application of the CS Scale and collaborative efforts with parents to improve early outcomes for children. Collectively this thesis provides a comprehensive examination, extending understanding of parenting and children’s development in diverse contexts.

Several key findings arose from this thesis. Analyses across Parental CS in a Duplo Block Task suggests that the CS Scale is gender-neutral in early toddlerhood whereas contrast across child age indicates that the scale is better suited for assessing Maternal CS in early toddlerhood. Compared to mothers, fathers offer unique contributions to children’s later executive functioning development in a Shared Reading Task. Cross-sample comparisons showed that mothers from more affluent were twice as likely to exhibit high CS compared to those from less affluent backgrounds. However, CS mediates the relationship between children’s language development in disadvantaged families, serving as a potential protective factor. Complementing the above quantitative findings, through qualitative analyses of parental beliefs on contexts that shape children's early learning experiences, themes centred on the role of reading strategies, CS, schools, and the government became apparent.

Overall, findings in this thesis provide methodological and applied insights for measuring CS in early childhood settings. In line with previous early childhood literature, this thesis suggests that, across contexts, sensitive parenting supports early cognitive development, highlighting the importance of broader contextual determinants of parenting and child development.