By focusing on fathers' involvement in relation to family and child outcomes, her research furthers understanding of parenting behaviors that impact children's cognitive and emotional well-being.
Cabrera started her research by investigating the effects of fathers' involvement in the lives of children and families on existing social policies, such as child support, welfare, and others.
[24] Cabrera's work provides empirical evidence for the significant effect of father engagement on cognitive,[25] emotional,[25] social,[26] and language[27] development of children.
[30] In this article, Cabrera's team outlined important findings that unmarried fathers’ prenatal involvement was associated with their levels of paternal engagement when their child was one and three years of age.
In this article, the authors discussed several issues related to father-child interaction and presented recommendations that can help further research to advance understanding of the role of fathering in a child's life.