My research agenda centers on early academic and social development, family and classroom processes, and policy-relevant research with low-income children and families. I have been funded by the NICHD, the NSF, the Spencer Foundation, the National Center for Family and Marriage Research, and the Learning, Research, and Development Center to examine key contextual factors in the home, classroom, and public policies that promote low-income children’s well-being.

My research is informed by multidisciplinary perspectives including developmental psychology, education, sociology, and economics. My work involves longitudinal secondary data analysis of large datasets (NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten 1998 & 2010 Cohorts) to examine national trends, as well as mixed methods, research-practice partnerships with community organizations to unpack mechanisms and processes. .

In my regional work, for three years (2007-2010), I was funded by the Spencer Foundation to collect time-sampled classroom observations, parent interviews, and math, reading, and socioemotional child assessments from 289 families from 30 child care centers in low-income communities (the Pitt School Readiness Study). The project team launched two federally funded projects in 2019 with families of 4 year-olds (NICHD) and 2 year-olds (NSF) to examine home environment influences on early math development across SES: Parents Promoting Early Learning (PPEL) project (https://lrdc.pitt.edu/ppel/). In fall 2024, we are launching a new NSF-funded project to follow the toddler sample into 1st and 2nd grades. The Co-PI’s on the PPEL projects are Melissa Libertus and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal.

Representative Publications

• Elliott, L., & Bachman, H. J. (2023). Mothers’ strategies to support children’s early learning in low-income homes: A qualitative investigation. Journal of Child and Family Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-023-02652-7
• Bachman, H. J., Miller, P., Elliott, L., Duong, S., Libertus, M., & Votruba-Drzal, E. (2022).
• Associations among socioeconomic status and preschool-aged children’s approximate number system acuity, number skills, and spatial skills: The role of executive function. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 221, 105453.
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096522000820?via%...
• Bachman, H. J., Elliott, L., Duong, S., Betancur, L., Navarro, M., Votruba-Drzal, E., & Libertus, M. (2020). Triangulating multi-method assessments of parental support for early math development. Frontiers in Education, 5:589514. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.589514
• Elliott, L., Bachman, H. J., & Henry, D. (2020). Why and how do parents promote math learning with their young children? Parenting: Science and Practice, 20(2), 108-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295192.2019.1694830
• Bachman, H. J., Degol, J. L., Elliott, L., Scharphorn, L., El Nokali, N. E., & Palmer, K. M. (2017). Preschool math exposure in private center-based care and low-SES children’s math development. Early Education and Development, 29, 417-434. DOI:10.1080/10409289.2017.1406245