Preschool and Academic School Readiness Among Young Children of Asian and Hispanic Immigrant Mothers

ABSTRACT

Preschool is an important developmental context for children of immigrants that can help them succeed in later life. In this study, we examine the association between preschool and academic school readiness among young children of Asian or Hispanic immigrant mothers. A secondary data analysis was conducted using data (n ≈ 1,550) collected in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. Results show that attending preschool (mostly prekindergarten or other center-based care) was associated with better academic school readiness at the year of participation among children of both Asian and Hispanic immigrant mothers; such beneficial associations were found at kindergarten entry among Asian children, but not Hispanic children. Furthermore, more-pronounced beneficial influences of preschool on academic school readiness were found at the year of participation among children of home language mothers in both groups, but such more-pronounced benefits were gone at kindergarten entry in both groups. These findings suggest that the differences between the two groups in maintaining the benefits from preschool may be associated with different home environments. Future research is needed to look specifically at the mechanisms of how attending preschool is related to academic school readiness among children of immigrants.     

Dimensions of Parenting Associated with Child Prekindergarten Emotion Regulation and Attention Control in Low‐income Families

Delays in emotion regulation and attention control are common among children growing up in poverty, and they contribute to significant socioeconomic gaps in school readiness and later school attainment. In this study, the emotion regulation and attention control skills of 210 prekindergarten Head Start participants were assessed (M age = 4.80 years old). Home interviews and videotaped parent–child interactions were used to evaluate three aspects of parenting (e.g., warm‐sensitive, directive‐critical, and parenting stress). Structural equation models documented significant, unique associations linking directive‐critical parenting and parenting stress with poor child emotion regulation skills. Directive‐critical parenting was also uniquely associated with low levels of child attention control. Warm‐sensitive parenting was not uniquely related to either emotion regulation or attention control at this age. The findings suggest that, by prekindergarten, parent stress management and reduced directiveness emerge as the primary correlates of child emotion regulation and attention control whereas warm‐sensitive parenting plays a diminished role.     

What you say,and how you say it: Preschoolers' growth in vocabulary and communication skills differentially predict kindergarten academic achievement and self‐regulation

The idea that language skills support school readiness, predicting later self‐regulation and academic success, is widely accepted. Although vocabulary is often emphasized in the developmental literature, the ability to use language appropriately in the classroom, or social communication skills, may also be critical. This article examined longitudinal contributions of children's vocabulary and social communication skills, from preschool to kindergarten, to kindergarten academic achievement (reading and math) and self‐regulation (executive functions and learning behaviors). Participants were 164 children (14% Latinx, 30% Black, 56% White; 57% girls) enrolled in Head Start programs. Results revealed that initial levels and growth in vocabulary and communication skills predicted better academic achievement. Social communication skills uniquely predicted self‐regulation, after accounting for vocabulary. We discuss potential mechanisms for these links and recommend that strategies to build social communication skills be incorporated in preschool interventions promoting school readiness.     

Cognitive reappraisal and need to belong predict prosociality in Mexican-origin adolescents

This 2-year longitudinal study examined Mexican-origin adolescents’ need to belong and cognitive reappraisal as predictors of multiple forms of prosocial behavior (i.e., general, emotional, and public prosocial behaviors). Prosocial behaviors, which are actions intended to benefit others, are hallmarks of social proficiency in adolescence and are influenced by intrapersonal abilities and motivations that typically develop during adolescence. Yet, few studies of Mexican-origin or other U.S. Latinx youths have examined whether such individual difference characteristics, specifically social motivation and emotion regulation skills, support prosocial behavior. In a sample of 229 Mexican-origin youth (M_age = 17.18 years, SD = .42, 110 girls), need to belong, cognitive reappraisal, and general prosocial behaviors were assessed at ages 17 and 19. Emotional and public forms of prosociality also were assessed at age 19. Cognitive reappraisal was positively associated with concurrent general prosociality at age 17, whereas need to belong was positively associated with concurrent public prosociality at age 19. Moderation analyses revealed that general and emotional types of prosocial behaviors at age 19 were lowest for youth with both lower need to belong and less use of cognitive reappraisal at 19 years. Greater cognitive reappraisal skills and need to belong may reflect distinct motivations for engaging in varying forms of prosocial behavior in late adolescence.     

Family–School Connectedness and Children's Early Social Development

This study examined the extent to which teacher ratings of the frequency of parent–teacher contacts and quality of parent–teacher relationships in prekindergarten were associated with teachers' perceptions of the quality of their relationship with children and children's social development. Participants were a diverse sample of 2966 four‐year‐olds who attended publicly funded prekindergarten programs in the USA. Results indicated that after controlling for child and family characteristics, the perceived quality of the parent–teacher relationship during prekindergarten was associated with prekindergarten teachers' ratings of children's social development during prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers' ratings at the beginning of kindergarten. Furthermore, the association between quality of the parent–teacher relationship and reductions in problem behavior was stronger among children who experienced social/economic risks.     

Associations among Maternal Behavior,Delay of Gratification,and School Readiness across the Early Childhood Years

This study examined the developmental pathways from maternal behavior to school readiness within a sample of 1007 children, with a specific focus on the mediating role of delay of gratification (DoG). Maternal behavior across the first 36 months of age was explored as a predictor of children's DoG at 54 months as well as their behavioral and academic competence in kindergarten. Results support sensitivity as a predictor of children's DoG and indicate significant associations between DoG and teacher‐reported externalizing behavior, social skills, and academic skills. Moreover, DoG partially mediated the associations between maternal sensitivity and school readiness skills, with the highest percentage of mediation reported for social skills. Findings indicate maternal sensitivity and DoG as potential targets for efforts aimed at enhancing school readiness among young children.     

Head Start,Prekindergarten, and Academic School Readiness: A Comparison Among Regions in the United States

ABSTRACT

Child care programs (including Head Start, prekindergarten [pre-K], and other center-based care) can differ, with patterns of use based on their location. Yet little research has examined how Head Start and pre-K programs affect children's academic school readiness, including vocabulary and reading skills at school entry, in the South as compared to other regions. To examine this further, secondary data (n = 2,803) collected in the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study were examined. Overall findings suggest, regardless of region, that Head Start and pre-K participants had higher academic skills at school entry than did their counterparts. In addition, when Head Start was compared to other center-based care and pre-K was compared to other care arrangements, both had larger effects on improving academic skills in the South compared with in other regions. These findings imply that Head Start and pre-K programs should target children who otherwise would receive nonparental non-center-based care. Future research should focus on why the effects of Head Start and pre-K vary between the South and other regions.     

Emotional Climate in Families Experiencing Homelessness: Associations with Child Affect and Socioemotional Adjustment in School

This study examined associations among family‐level risks, emotional climate, and child adjustment in families experiencing homelessness. Emotional climate, an indirect aspect of emotion socialization, was indexed by parents’ expressed emotion while describing their children. Sociodemographic risk and parent internalizing distress were hypothesized to predict more negativity and less warmth in the emotional climate. Emotional climate was expected to predict observer‐rated child affect and teacher‐reported socioemotional adjustment, mediating effects of risk. Participants were 138 homeless parents (64 percent African‐American) and their four‐ to six‐year‐old children (43.5 percent male). During semi‐structured interviews, parents reported demographic risks and internalizing distress and completed a Five Minute Speech Sample about their child, later rated for warmth and negativity. Children's positive and negative affect were coded from videotapes of structured parent‐child interaction tasks. Socioemotional adjustment (externalizing behavior, peer acceptance, and prosocial behavior) was reported by teachers a few months later. Hypotheses were partially supported. Parent internalizing distress was associated with higher parent negativity, which was linked to more negative affect in children, and parent warmth was associated with children's positive affect. Neither emotional climate nor child affect predicted teacher‐reported externalizing behavior or peer acceptance, but parental negativity and male sex predicted lower prosocial behavior in the classroom. Future research directions and clinical implications are discussed.     

Mother–Child Conversations about Emotions: Linkages to Child Aggression and Prosocial Behavior

We examined associations of maternal and child emotional discourse and child emotion knowledge with children's behavioral competence. Eighty‐five upper middle‐income, mostly White preschoolers and mothers completed a home‐based bookreading task to assess discourse about emotions. Children's anger perception bias and emotion situation knowledge were assessed in a separate interview. Children's prosocial behavior, relational aggression, and physical aggression were observed during a preschool‐based triadic play task. Mothers' emotion explanations were correlated with children's emotion situation knowledge and relational aggression. Both mothers' and children's emotion explanations predicted prosocial behavior whereas mothers' use of positive emotional themes was negatively associated with children's anger perception bias. Physical aggression was predicted by mothers' emotion comments, children's anger perception bias, and lack of emotion situation knowledge. Maternal emotion socialization variables were less strongly related to children's behavioral competence after accounting for demographics and child emotional competence. Implications of these findings for future research on emotion socialization are discussed.     

Peer Experience: Common and Unique Features of Number of Friendships, Social Network Centrality, and Sociometric Status

Three conceptually distinct dimensions of classroom social position (number of mutual friendships, social network centrality, and sociometric status) were examined in relation to each other and to peer-nominated behavioral reputation among 205 7- and 8-year old children. There were moderate correlations in children's standing across the three dimensions, but categorical analyses underscored the limits to these associations (e.g., 39% of Rejected children had at least one mutual friendship; 31% of Popular children did not). Each dimension was associated with a distinct profile of peer-nominated social behavior and, in multiple regression analyses, accounted for unique variance in peer-nominated behaviors. Number of friendships was uniquely associated with prosocial skills; network centrality was uniquely associated with both prosocial and antisocial behavioral styles; and being disliked was uniquely associated with the full range of social behaviors. Results provide empirical validation for the conceptual distinctions among number of reciprocated friendships, social network centrality and being liked or disliked.     

Young Children's Prosocial and Aggressive Behaviors and Their Experiences of Being Targeted for Similar Behaviors by Peers

Children's target experiences (as recipients of prosocial peer acts and victims of peer aggression) were investigated for their concurrent and longitudinal associations with prosocial and aggressive behavior. Forty‐four children (initially 22–40 months) were observed in naturalistic interactions with peers during a two‐month period for each of three consecutive years. Results revealed no consistency over time in children's experiences as targets for aggressive or prosocial peer acts, although there was some indication that altruistic target experiences may be stable from the end of the preschool period. Early behavior appeared to affect the way children were later treated by peers, but no support was found for the idea that early target experiences influence later behavior. Prosocial behavior was concurrently and longitudinally associated with prosocial target experiences. Aggressive behavior reduced the likelihood of children being targets of prosocial peer behavior and, over time, also of their being targets of peers’ aggression.     

Family, Neighborhood, and Peer Characteristics as Predictors of Child Adjustment: A Longitudinal Analysis of Additive and Mediation Models

The purpose of this study was to test direct, additive, and mediation models involving family, neighborhood, and peer factors in relation to emerging antisocial behavior and social skills. Neighborhood danger, maternal depressive symptoms, and supportive parenting were assessed in early childhood. Peer group acceptance was measured in middle childhood, and data on antisocial behavior and social skills were collected when boys were 11 and 12 years old. Results were consistent with an additive effects model of child antisocial behavior. In contrast, peer relationships were stronger predictors of social skills than were family factors. Support for mediation was found in models involving neighborhood danger and supportive parenting. However, only peer group acceptance predicted change in antisocial and prosocial behavior. Implications for family and peer relations as socialization contexts are discussed.     

Relations between Theory of Mind and Indirect and Physical Aggression in Kindergarten: Evidence of the Moderating Role of Prosocial Behaviors

The present study examined the association between theory of mind and indirect versus physical aggression, as well as the potential moderating role of prosocial behavior in this context. Participants were 399 twins and singletons drawn from two longitudinal studies in Canada. At five years of age, children completed a theory of mind task and a receptive vocabulary task. A year later, teachers evaluated children's indirect and physical aggression and prosocial behavior. Indirect aggression was significantly and positively associated with theory of mind skills, but only in children with average or low levels of prosocial behavior. Physical aggression was negatively associated with prosocial behavior but not with theory of mind. Each analysis included gender, receptive vocabulary, and the respective other subtype of aggression as control variables. These results did not differ between girls and boys or between twins and singletons. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Prosocial Tendencies among Chinese American Children in Immigrant Families: Links to Cultural and Socio‐demographic Factors and Psychological Adjustment

The present study examined relations between prosocial tendencies (dispositional sympathy and prosocial behavior) and psychological adjustment using a multi‐method and multi‐informant approach in a socioeconomically diverse sample of first‐ and second‐generation Chinese American children from immigrant families (N = 238, M age = 9.2 years). We tested the concurrent associations between: (a) children's dispositional sympathy (rated by parents, teachers, and children, and observed prosocial behavior), (b) psychological adjustment (parent‐ and teacher‐reported externalizing problems and social competence); and (c) cultural and socio‐demographic factors (children's Chinese and American orientations, family Socioeconomic Status (SES), only child status, and children's age, sex, and social desirability). Results from correlations and structural equation modeling suggested that different measures of prosocial tendencies related differently to children's psychological adjustment. Parent‐ and teacher‐rated sympathy were associated with higher child social competence and lower externalizing problems within, but not across, reporter. By contrast, child‐rated sympathy was associated with higher teacher‐rated social competence, and observed prize donation was associated with lower teacher‐rated externalizing problems. Different measures of prosocial tendencies also showed different relations to cultural and socio‐demographic factors. These findings suggest that prosocial tendencies are not a unitary construct in Chinese American immigrant children: the manifestations of prosocial tendencies and their adjustment implications might depend on the context and/or targets of these tendencies.     

The world of parents and peers: coercive exchanges and children's social adaptation

The relation among child antisocial behavior, child coercive exchanges with parents and peers, and the social adaptation of middle-childhood-aged boys and girls was investigated. The 374 children were observed during laboratory tasks with their parents and during recess with peers. A covariance model was tested that hypothesized that coercive exchanges with parents and peers would contribute uniquely to a multiple-agent assessment of child antisocial behavior, supporting an ecological view of social development. A single model described both boys and girls adequately, although minor gender-specific variations in effect size did produce a better fit. Children's antisocial behavior was associated with school maladaption primarily among boys, as represented by academic engagement in the classroom and peer nominations of social preference. Children's antisocial behavior and coercive interactions, in contrast, were correlated with peer antisocial behavior in both girls and boys.     

Links between friends’ behaviors and the emergence of leadership in childhood: A genetically informed study of twins

Using a genetically informed design, this study examined whether children's leadership behavior varied as a function of their reciprocal friends’ behavioral characteristics. Specifically, we tested (a) whether friends’ use of a dual strategy (specifically, indirect aggression with prosocial behavior) was associated with children's leadership behavior and (b) whether, in line with a gene‐environment interaction (GxE), the predictive association between friends’ behaviors and children's leadership behavior varied depending on the child's genetic likelihood for leadership. The sample comprised 239 Monozygotic and same‐sex Dizygotic twin pairs (50% boys) assessed in grade 4 (mean age = 10.4 years, SD = 0.26). Reciprocal friendship and children's and their friends’ prosocial, indirectly aggressive, and physically aggressive behaviors were measured via peer nominations. Children's and friends’ leadership was measured through teacher ratings. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that children's genetic likelihood for leadership was positively associated with their leadership behavior. Moreover, the higher their genetic likelihood for leadership, the more children displayed increased leadership behavior when friends showed a combination of indirect aggression and prosocial behavior (GxE). These results underline the role of friends’ behaviors in explaining children's leadership. Socializing with bistrategic friends seems to foster leadership skills especially in children with a genetic likelihood for leadership.     

Popularity and Social Preference in Chinese Adolescents: Associations with Social and Behavioral Adjustment

This study examined the characteristics associated with popularity and social preference in 769 14‐year‐old adolescents (54 percent boys) from mainland China. Consistent with findings from other countries, popularity and social preference were moderately correlated and overt aggression was positively correlated with popularity but negatively correlated with social preference. Prosocial behavior, athletic skill, dating, academic achievement, and mutual friends were positively associated with both popularity and social preference, with the effects for prosocial behavior, athletic skill, and dating greater for popularity than for social preference. The strong correlations between popularity and prosocial behavior are consistent with Confucian ideas of moral leadership and the obligations of high status individuals toward others. Cultural values are also reflected in the association of popularity with academic achievement. The inconsistent findings from China regarding the relation between aggression and popularity may stem from multiple factors including the absence of a suitable Chinese translation for popularity.     

Maternal disclosure and adolescent prosocial behavior: The mediating roles of adolescent disclosure and coping

In this study, we considered the impact of mothers' willingness to disclose about distressing events and rule transgressions on their adolescent children's willingness to disclose about similar events, as well as adolescents' ability to cope and to show concern for others. Mothers and their 12‐ to 14‐year‐old children (N = 125) were asked to say how likely they would be to talk about moderately distressing concerns as well as minor rule transgressions. Adolescent positive coping skills were also assessed. Teachers (N = 92) rated the adolescents' prosocial behaviors in the classroom. Adolescents' disclosure about distressing events and positive coping mediated the relation between maternal disclosure about distressing events and adolescent prosocial behavior. Further, maternal disclosure alone about both distressing events and rule transgressions was related to adolescent prosocial behavior through positive coping. These results suggest that mothers' willingness to talk about their own negative experiences can help children cope better and, ultimately, to show greater empathy and concern for others.     

The Cognitive Basis of Future-oriented Prosocial Behavior

Two experiments examined the development of future-oriented prosocial behavior in relation to developing theory of mind and executive functioning. Children from 3;0 to 4;6 were given a series of trials in which they had to make a choice between immediate and delayed sticker rewards, where these rewards accrued either to self, to a play partner, or were shared. They also were presented with standard theory of mind tasks (in Experiment 1) assessing the understanding of belief and desire and an executive function task (in Experiment 2) in which the children had to inhibit pointing to a baited box in order to win the cookie within. Results showed that for 4-year-olds, the tendency to opt for delayed rewards in order to share with the partner was correlated with theory of mind. For younger 3-year-olds, the children's ability to inhibit pointing to the baited box was significantly correlated with the tendency to choose delayed over immediate sticker rewards. These results indicate that children's ability to show future-oriented prosocial or sharing behavior is linked developmentally both to the ability to imagine conflicting noncurrent mental states and the ability to inhibit responding to perceptually salient events.     

Reflection: Linking Service and Learning—Linking Students and Communities

While research on service–learning has been mixed, there is evidence to suggest that service–learning programs which thoroughly integrate service and academic learning through continuous reflection promote development of the knowledge, skills, and cognitive capacities necessary for students to deal effectively with the complex social issues that challenge citizens. While there is not much research in the service–learning literature that specifically addresses techniques of reflection, evidence from studies of problem–based learning, situated cognition, and cognitive development suggests approaches to reflection that will enhance the power of service–learning in attaining these important goals which facilitate full community participation. This review presents concrete suggestions about this type of program.