The impact of early psychological intervention on the cognitive and emotional regulation abilities of young children in families of schizophrenia patients

Abstract Background Children from families with children suffering from schizophrenia often face higher risks in cognitive development and emotion regulation. Statistics show that approximately 45% of children whose parents have schizophrenia exhibit cognitive developmental delays, and over 60% demonstrate emotion regulation disorders. Early psychological intervention, as a key means of specifically improving the developmental trajectory of children from high-risk families, can help them establish sound cognitive and emotion regulation abilities. Therefore, this study uses scale assessments to analyze the actual impact of early psychological intervention on the cognitive and emotion regulation abilities of children from families with children suffering from schizophrenia, providing empirical evidence for the early development of this group. Methods This study selected 86 children aged 3-5 years whose parents were diagnosed with schizophrenia as research subjects. Participants were randomly assigned to an intervention group (n = 43) and a control group (n = 43). The intervention group received 16 weeks of early psychological intervention, with two intensive intervention sessions per week, including cognitive stimulation training, emotion regulation guidance, and parent–child interaction intervention. The control group received only routine community child health services. Cognitive and emotion regulation abilities were assessed using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) and the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC), measured before intervention (T0) and at the end of intervention (week 16, T1), respectively. Statistical analysis was performed using repeated measures ANOVA, with a significance level set at p.05. Cohen ‘s d effect size was also calculated to assess the magnitude of the intervention effect. Results The results of the WPPSI and ERC tests are shown in Table 1. Table 1 shows that in the intervention group, the total WPPSI score increased from 79.8 ± 5.9 in stage T0 to 90.2 ± 5.1 in stage T1 (p.001). The total ERC score increased from 25.8 ± 3.2 in stage T0 to 35.6 ± 2.8 (p.001), with a Cohen’s d effect size of 2.89. In contrast, there were no significant changes in either the total WPPSI or ERC scores in the control group before and after the intervention (p.05). Repeated measures ANOVA further confirmed the significant interaction between intervention time and group (F = 18.95 for WPPSI, p.001; F = 21.76 for ERC, p.001). Discussion The experimental results show that 16 weeks of early psychological intervention can significantly improve the cognitive and emotional regulation abilities of children from families with schizophrenia. The intervention group showed significantly higher scores in cognitive ability and emotional regulation than the control group, while the control group showed no significant improvement in cognitive and emotional regulation abilities during the testing period, further validating the necessity and effectiveness of early psychological intervention.