Head Start and urban children's school readiness: A birth cohort study in 18 cities.

We used longitudinal data from a birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, to investigate the links between Head Start and school readiness in a large and diverse sample of urban children at age 5 (N = 2,803; 18 cities). We found that Head Start attendance was associated with enhanced cognitive ability and social competence and reduced attention problems but not reduced internalizing or externalizing behavior problems. These findings were robust to model specifications (including models with city-fixed effects and propensity-scoring matching). Furthermore, the effects of Head Start varied by the reference group. Head Start was associated with improved cognitive development when compared with parental care or other nonparental care, as well as improved social competence (compared with parental care) and reduced attention problems (compared with other nonparental care). In contrast, compared with attendance at pre-kindergarten or other center-based care, Head Start attendance was not associated with cognitive gains but with improved social competence and reduced attention and externalizing behavior problems (compared with attendance at other center-based care). These associations were not moderated by child gender or race/ethnicity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kindergarten children's emotion competence as a predictor of their academic competence in first grade.

This study examined the relation between emotion competence and academic competence and three potential mediators of this relation. In kindergarten, 193 children from elementary schools serving urban, minority, and low income students participated in an emotion competence assessment, and 142 of these children completed a follow-up assessment in first grade. The relation between teacher ratings of emotion regulation and academic competence was primarily indirect through the effect of emotion regulation on teacher ratings of attention. Peer acceptance and teacher closeness did not mediate the relations between emotion competence and academic competence. Results highlight the potential benefits of early emotion-centered prevention programs and the need to identify children with attention problems as early as possible to prevent academic difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and psychometric properties of the Early Development Instrument (EDI): A measure of children's school readiness.

The Early Development Instrument (EDI), a teacher-completed measure of children's school readiness at entry to Grade 1, was designed to provide communities with an informative, inexpensive and psychometrically sound tool to assess outcomes of early development as reflected in children's school readiness. Its psychometric properties at individual level were evaluated in two studies. Five a priori domains--physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and communication, and cognitive development and general knowledge--were tested in a factor analysis of data on over 16,000 kindergarten children. The factor analyses upheld the first three domains, but revealed the need to develop two new ones, resulting in the final version of the EDI consisting of: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge domains. These final domains showed good reliability levels, comparable with other instruments. A separate study (N = 82) demonstrated consistent agreements in parent-teacher, interrater reliabilities, concurrent validity, and convergent validity. These results establish the EDI as a psychometrically adequate indicator of child well-being at school entry. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between peer-play interactions in the family context and dimensions of school readiness for low-income preschool children.

Relationships between parental report of children's peer play at home and indicators of children's school readiness were examined. Behavior ratings and observational data were collected for 242 preschool children from a large urban Head Start program. Relationships between children's home-based, peer-play behaviors and 4 measures of children's classroom behaviors (i.e., school-based peer play, approaches to learning, self-regulation, and behavior problems) were analyzed using bivariate correlational and multivariate methods. Play competencies exhibited in the home environment were significantly associated with prosocial behavior in the classroom, motivation to learn, task persistence, and autonomy. Disruptive or disconnected play behaviors were significantly related to patterns of disruptive and dysregulated experiences in the classroom with peers and with the learning process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parenting and academic socialization as they relate to school readiness: The roles of ethnicity and family income.

Relationships between parenting and children's school readiness were examined within socioeconomically comparable samples of African American and Euro-American kindergarten children, mothers, and teachers. The moderating role of family income and ethnicity for the relationships between parenting behaviors, parental expectations, and school involvement and children's early school performance were also examined. Although there were many similarities across ethnic groups in the relationships between parenting and school performance, family income moderated the relationship between parenting behaviors and prereading scores: Parenting had a much stronger relationship with prereading performance for lower income families than for higher income families. Ethnicity moderated the relationships between parental school involvement and children's premath performance. Implications of these findings for prevention and intervention programs are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of cognitive skills and gains in academic school readiness for children from low-income families.

This study examined developmental associations between growth in domain-general cognitive processes (working memory and attention control) and growth in domain-specific skills (emergent literacy and numeracy) across the prekindergarten year and their relative contributions to kindergarten reading and math achievement. One hundred sixty-four Head Start children (44% African American or Latino; 57% female) were followed longitudinally. Path analyses revealed that working memory and attention control predicted growth in emergent literacy and numeracy skills during the prekindergarten year and that growth in these domain-general cognitive skills made unique contributions to the prediction of kindergarten math and reading achievement, controlling for growth in domain-specific skills. These findings extend research highlighting the importance of working memory and attention control for academic learning, demonstrating the effects in early childhood, prior to school entry. Implications of these findings for prekindergarten programs are discussed, particularly those designed to reduce the school readiness gaps associated with socioeconomic disadvantage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarian parenting in individualist and collectivist groups: Associations with maternal emotion and cognition and children's self-esteem.

Mothers and children between the ages of 7 and 12, from individualist (Western European) and collectivist (Egyptian, Iranian, Indian, and Pakistani) backgrounds, completed assessments of children's self-esteem, maternal authoritarianism, and mothers' thoughts and feelings about their children. Collectivist mothers endorsed authoritarian parenting more than did individualist mothers but did not feel or think more negatively about their children, and collectivist children were not lower in self-esteem. Within both groups, maternal negative affect and cognition were associated with lower self-esteem in children. However, maternal authoritarianism was associated with maternal negative emotion and cognition only in the individualist group. The results suggest that maternal negative thoughts and feelings, associated with authoritarianism in individualist but not collectivist groups, may be more detrimental to children's self-esteem than is authoritarianism in and of itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discrete emotions predict changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology: A meta-analysis of experimental emotion elicitations.

Our purpose in the present meta-analysis was to examine the extent to which discrete emotions elicit changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology; whether these changes are correlated as would be expected if emotions organize responses across these systems; and which factors moderate the magnitude of these effects. Studies (687; 4,946 effects, 49,473 participants) were included that elicited the discrete emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety as independent variables with adults. Consistent with discrete emotion theory, there were (a) moderate differences among discrete emotions; (b) differences among discrete negative emotions; and (c) correlated changes in behavior, experience, and physiology (cognition and judgment were mostly not correlated with other changes). Valence, valence–arousal, and approach–avoidance models of emotion were not as clearly supported. There was evidence that these factors are likely important components of emotion but that they could not fully account for the pattern of results. Most emotion elicitations were effective, although the efficacy varied with the emotions being compared. Picture presentations were overall the most effective elicitor of discrete emotions. Stronger effects of emotion elicitations were associated with happiness versus negative emotions, self-reported experience, a greater proportion of women (for elicitations of happiness and sadness), omission of a cover story, and participants alone versus in groups. Conclusions are limited by the inclusion of only some discrete emotions, exclusion of studies that did not elicit discrete emotions, few available effect sizes for some contrasts and moderators, and the methodological rigor of included studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in trajectories of emotion regulation processes: The effects of maternal depressive symptomatology and children's physiological regulation.

Trajectories of emotion regulation processes were examined in a community sample of 269 children across the ages of 4 to 7 using hierarchical linear modeling. Maternal depressive symptomatology (Symptom Checklist-90) and children's physiological reactivity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) and vagal regulation (ΔRSA) were explored as predictors of individual differences in trajectories of emotion regulation and negativity (mother-reported Emotion Regulation Checklist; A. M. Shields & D. Cicchetti, 1997). In addition, the authors explored whether children's physiological regulation would moderate the effect of maternal depressive symptomatology on children's emotion regulation trajectories. Results indicated that over time, emotion regulation increased whereas negativity decreased, though considerable individual variability in the pattern of change was observed. Greater maternal depressive symptomatology was associated with less steep emotion regulation trajectories. There was a significant Maternal Depressive Symptomatology × Baseline RSA × Age interaction predicting emotion regulation trajectories. Overall, it appears that the development of emotion regulation over time is compromised when mothers report greater depressive symptomatology. There is also evidence that children's capacity for physiological regulation can buffer some of the adverse consequences associated with maternal depressive symptomatology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion and cognition in psychotherapy: The transforming power of affect.

Theory and research on emotion in both psychology and psychotherapy are reviewed to demonstrate the importance of emotion in human functioning and psychotherapeutic change. A proposal is made for the importance of integrating empirically supported emotion-focused change processes into psychotherapeutic work. Five principles of change in the emotion domain-emotion awareness; expression; regulation; reflection on emotion; and the more novel principle of emotion transformation, by which emotion is changed by emotion-are offered as processes of change that are rapidly gathering empirical support. The result of emotion coming of age will be the expansion of theories of dysfunction and of treatment to include emotion-focused coping and emotional processes of change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tripartite dimensions of emotion in a child clinical sample: Measurement strategies and implications for clinical utility.

Several measurement strategies to assess the tripartite model of emotion in child and adolescent samples have been developed. However, no studies have comparatively examined the most suitable strategies in clinical samples of children and adolescents. This study involved the evaluation of 2 distinct measures of tripartite constructs relative to anxiety and depression criterion variables in a clinical sample of 226 children in Grades 1 through 12. Results indicated that the measures performed similarly overall, but some differences were pronounced enough to suggest that the measures indexed slightly different aspects of the same constructs. These differences appear consistent with the scale design of each instrument. Implications for measurement of these constructs in future research are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)