Emotion,understanding, and social skills among boys at risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

There is growing interest in the role of emotional competence in middle school children's adjustment and functioning, yet many populations remain underresearched. Few studies have explored the emotional competence, especially emotion understanding, of children with, or at risk of, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and even fewer have examined the role emotion understanding plays in these children's social skills. Our study investigates a profile of the emotion understanding capacities of Israeli boys at risk of ADHD and evaluates its association with their social skills. One hundred and fifty‐two boys (grades 4–6) were each assigned to an at‐risk (n = 66) or comparison (n = 86) group based on their scores on an ADHD symptoms questionnaire (Conners Rating System–Revised). The two groups were matched on age, socioeconomic status and class, and school environment. Group comparisons revealed that relative to their non–at‐risk counterparts, at‐risk boys demonstrated less mature emotion understanding. Finally, our findings indicate that poor emotion understanding plays a more notable role in the social functioning of at‐risk than non–at‐risk children. This study's contribution to the understanding and school treatment of children with ADHD emotional and social competencies is discussed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

HOW HOMES INFLUENCE SCHOOLS: EARLY PARENTING PREDICTS AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILDREN'S CLASSROOM SOCIAL–EMOTIONAL FUNCTIONING

Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort were used to examine the extent to which early parenting predicted African American children's kindergarten social–emotional functioning. Teachers rated children's classroom social–emotional functioning in four areas (i.e., approaches to learning, self‐control, interpersonal skills, and externalizing behaviors). Mothers completed self‐report questionnaires assessing their home‐based parenting practices (i.e., warmth and home learning stimulation). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that mothers who engaged in more frequent home learning stimulation (e.g., shared book reading) had children with more positive teacher ratings of approaches to learning, self‐control, interpersonal skills, and fewer externalizing behaviors. Notably, demographic characteristics also contributed to children's social–emotional functioning. Specifically, African American girls from more affluent, two‐parent homes with highly educated mothers had the most positive ratings of classroom social–emotional functioning across all four dimensions.     

Social‐Information‐Processing Skills of Kindergarten Children with Developmental Learning Disabilities

The study examined the social‐information‐processing skills of kindergarten children with developmental learning disabilities (LD) utilizing Crick and Dodge's (1994) model of children's social adjustment as a theoretical framework. Participants consisted of 20 kindergarten children with developmental LD who attended three integrated kindergartens and 20 children without developmental LD from the same kindergartens. Participants were assessed on social‐information‐processing skills, feelings of loneliness, sense of coherence, and teachers' ratings of behavioral problems and positive resources. The results indicated that girls with developmental LD performed significantly lower on two information‐processing steps—the response decision and the enactment steps—than did girls without LD. Such differences were not found for boys. The results also showed that the social‐information‐processing skills of children with developmental LD were correlated with teachers' ratings.     

Parents’ Talk About Letters With Their Young Children

A literacy‐related activity that occurs in children's homes—talk about letters in everyday conversations—was examined using data from 50 children who were visited every 4 months between 14 and 50 months. Parents talked about some letters, including those that are common in English words and the first letter of their children's names, especially often. Parents’ focus on the child's initial was especially strong in families of higher socioeconomic status, and the extent to which parents talked about the child's initial during the later sessions of the study was related to the children's kindergarten reading skill. Conversations that included the child's initial were longer than those that did not, and parents presented a variety of information about this letter.     

TEACHERS AND THE SOCIO‐ECONOMIC FACTOR

The aim of this small scale investigation was to compare the attitudes, aspirations and knowledge of working class and middle class mothers with regard to the education system. The working class mothers proved to know very much less about the system and were less eager for their children to go on to higher education. Middle class parents tended to be ambitious beyond the child's intellectual capacity, while working class parents tended to be under‐ambitious and to underestimate the child's intellectual ability. In terms of job ambitions, parents’ expectations conformed with their own class background rather than with children's actual potentialities. The author concludes with positive recommendations for breaking down preconceptions about their children's capabilities.     

Question,Explanation, Follow‐Up: A Mechanism for Learning From Others?

This study explored differences in caregiver–child interactions following children's information‐seeking questions. Naturalistic speech from thirty‐seven 4‐year‐olds and their caregivers was used to explore children's information‐seeking questions, the caregiver's response, and children's subsequent follow‐up. Half of the families were low‐socioeconomic status (SES) and the other half were mid‐SES. Although children across socioeconomic groups asked a similar proportion of questions, mid‐SES caregivers offered significantly more explanatory responses to causal questions as well as more noncircular explanations than low‐SES caregivers. No differences were found in children's follow‐up to responses given to fact‐based questions; however, after hearing unsatisfactory responses to causal questions, mid‐SES children were significantly more likely to provide their own explanation. Such variability in caregiver–child interaction may have implications for subsequent learning.     

Let's Talk About Maths: The Role of Observed “Maths‐Talk” and Maths Provisions in Preschoolers' Numeracy

Developmental cognitive neuroscience highlights the importance of interactions between children and their environment. As young children spend increasing time in childcare, it is key to investigate the impact of “maths‐talk” and maths provisions in preschools. Qualitative insights from early educators indicate a greater bias toward counting activities than would be expected given the Early Years curriculum. In addition, we quantified the observed breadth of preschool practitioners' maths language (e.g., place‐value language), setting‐based maths provisions (e.g., quality of maths‐related activities), and their relation with children's early numeracy skills. In settings with greater practitioners' breadth of maths language, children display greater cardinality skills although our data call for the further investigation of parental socioeconomic status and education. We conclude with a discussion on the need to operationalize children's maths learning environments as diversely as possible. Enriching practitioners' skill sets may be an effective and needed way of improving early maths outcomes.     

High-Quality Preschool: The Socioeconomic Composition of Preschool Classrooms and Children's Learning

Research Findings: As policymakers expand access to preschool, the sociodemographic composition of preschool classrooms will become increasingly important. These efforts may create programs that increase the concentration of children from low-income families or, alternatively, foster the creation of socioeconomically diverse preschool classrooms. What effect the creation of such contexts would have on very young children remains unclear. Using multilevel methods and data on 2,966 children in 704 prekindergarten classrooms, this study explores the relationship between socioeconomic classroom composition and children's social and cognitive development. The results indicate positive associations between the mean socioeconomic status (SES) of the class and children's receptive language, expressive language, and mathematics learning, regardless of children's own sociodemographic backgrounds and the characteristics of their classrooms. However, the analyses indicate no association between the development of social competence and class mean SES. Practice or Policy: The links between classroom SES and language and mathematics development were comparable in size to those associated with instructional quality and even children's own SES. Neither structural nor instructional characteristics of prekindergarten classrooms explained these relationships, suggesting the possibility of direct peer effects. The findings indicate that the composition of children's classrooms should be considered an important aspect of preschool quality.     

Long‐term outcome of oral language and phonological awareness intervention with socially disadvantaged preschoolers: the impact on language and literacy

Early intervention aims to prevent poor literacy outcomes associated with social disadvantage. This study examined whether the short‐term positive effect of a preschool classroom‐based oral language and phonological awareness (PA) programme was maintained and transferred to literacy 2 years later. The vocabulary knowledge, grammatical skill, auditory comprehension and reading comprehension of 54 6–7‐year‐old Australian children who attended school in a low‐socioeconomic area were measured. Children's PA abilities were also assessed and are reported elsewhere. There were no significant differences between children who had received intervention in preschool and those who had not, with the entire cohort performing below the average range of the general population. The findings indicated that while generating short‐term positive effects, intervention in preschool did not enhance socially disadvantaged children's language and literacy achievement in the long term.     

Supermarket Speak: Increasing Talk Among Low‐Socioeconomic Status Families

Children from low‐socioeconomic status (SES) families often fall behind their middle‐class peers in early language development. But interventions designed to support their language skills are often costly and labor‐intensive. This study implements an inexpensive and subtle language intervention aimed at sparking parent–child interaction in a place that families naturally visit: the supermarket. We placed signs encouraging adult–child dialogue in supermarkets serving low‐ and mid‐SES neighborhoods. Using an unobtrusive observational methodology, we tested how these signs affected adult–child interactions. When signs were present in supermarkets serving low‐SES neighborhoods, both the amount and the quality of talk between adults and children increased significantly, compared to when the signs were not present; signs had little effect in middle‐SES supermarkets. This study demonstrates that implementing simple, cost‐effective interventions in everyday environments may bolster children's language development and school readiness skills.     

Bodies at Home and at School: Toward a Theory of Embodied Social Class Status

Sociology has long recognized the centrality of the body in the reciprocal construction of individuals and society, and recent research has explored the influence of a variety of social institutions on the body. Significant research has established the influence of social class, child‐rearing practices, and variable language forms in families and children. Less well understood is the influence of children's social class status on their gestures, comportment, and other bodily techniques. In this essay Sue Ellen Henry brings these two areas of study together to explore how working‐class children's bodies are shaped by the child‐rearing practices associated with their social class status, and the potential effects these bodily techniques have on their experience in schools.     

Effortful Control Moderates Bidirectional Effects Between Children's Externalizing Behavior and Their Mothers' Depressive Symptoms

This study examined bidirectional associations between mothers' depressive symptoms and children's externalizing behavior and whether they were moderated by preschool‐age effortful control and gender. Mothers and teachers reported on 224 primarily White, middle‐class children at ages 3, 5, and 10. Effortful control was assessed via behavioral battery and mother ratings. Structural equation modeling indicated that maternal depressive symptoms at child age 3 predicted more externalizing behavior at age 10 among children with low effortful control and among boys. Externalizing behavior at age 3 predicted fewer depressive symptoms at the age 10 assessments among mothers of children with high effortful control. Boys with suboptimal self‐regulation exposed to high levels of maternal depressive symptoms were at greatest risk for school‐age behavioral problems.     

Why We Think We Can't Dance: Theory of Mind and Children's Desire to Perform

Theory of mind (ToM) allows children to achieve success in the social world by understanding others' minds. A study with 3‐ to 12‐year‐olds, however, demonstrates that gains in ToM are linked to decreases in children's desire to engage in performative behaviors associated with health and well‐being, such as singing and dancing. One hundred and fifty‐nine middle‐class children from diverse backgrounds in a Northeastern U.S. metropolitan area completed the study in 2011. The development of ToM is associated with decreases in self‐esteem, which in turn predicts decreases in children's willingness to perform. This shift away from performance begins at age 4 (when ToM begins to develop), years before children enter puberty.     

Pre-kindergarten teachers’ use of transition practices and children's adjustment to kindergarten

This study describes pre-kindergarten teachers’ use of kindergarten transition practices and examined the extent to which these practices were associated with kindergarten teachers’ judgments of children's social, self-regulatory, and academic skills upon their entry into kindergarten. Participants were 722 children from 214 pre-kindergarten classrooms participating in the National Center for Early Development and Learning's (NCEDL) Multi-State Pre-kindergarten Study. Of nine transition practices intended to promote children's adaptation to kindergarten, pre-kindergarten teachers reported implementing, on average, six transition practices, with notable variation across pre-kindergarten classrooms. Children were judged by their kindergarten teachers to have more positive social competencies and fewer problem behaviors when they attended pre-kindergarten classrooms in which more transition activities were implemented and, specifically, in which teachers discussed curricula or specific children with kindergarten teachers. In addition, positive associations between kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of children's social competence and pre-kindergarten transition activities (total number of activities and activities that children experience directly) were stronger for children who experienced social and economic risks. Implications of these findings related to alignment across the pre-kindergarten to kindergarten settings to improve children's school readiness are discussed.     

A model of home learning environment and social risk factors in relation to children's emergent literacy and social outcomes

The quality of the home environment is widely recognized as a strong contributor to young children's emergent literacy and social competence and to their subsequent educational success. The present study examined the relationships between family variables (socioeconomic status (SES), social risk factors, and home learning variables) and children's emergent literacy competence and children's social functioning. The sample for this study was obtained by randomly selecting 48 classrooms within three Head Start programs and, then, randomly selecting five girls and five boys from each class. The final sample consisted of 325 families for which information about both child and primary caregiver was obtained from multiple sources (teacher, outside assessor, and primary caregiver). A mediational model was hypothesized and tested using structural equation modeling. The findings are consistent with the hypotheses that family social risk and home learning experiences mediate the association between SES and Head Start children's school readiness in the areas of emergent literacy competence and social functioning.     

Visions for literacy: parents’ aspirations for reading in children with Down syndrome

Although children with Down syndrome (DS) can learn to read, few studies have explored parental perspectives on the reading development of this group of children. This article, written by Leila Ricci and Anna Osipova, from California State University, explores visions and expectations regarding reading held by parents of children with Down syndrome in the US. Parents of 50 children with DS (aged three to 13 years) completed a survey about their children's interest in reading and responded to open‐ended questions inquiring about their views on their children's reading development. A majority of parents in this study described their children's positive attitude toward reading, stated their reading‐related goals for their children, defined their children's relative strengths in reading, and shared strategies used in the home to promote literacy in this population. Parents pay close attention to and have high expectations for their children's reading achievement, and thereby would benefit from partnerships with informed educators willing and capable of teaching reading to children with DS.     

Families’ social backgrounds matter: Socio‐economic factors,home learning and young children's language,literacy and social outcomes

Parental support with children's learning is considered to be one pathway through which socio‐economic factors influence child competencies. Utilising a national longitudinal sample from the Millennium Cohort Study, this study examined the relationship between home learning and parents’ socio‐economic status and their impact on young children's language/literacy and socio‐emotional competence. The findings consistently showed that, irrespective of socio‐economic status, parents engaged with various learning activities (except reading) roughly equally. The socio‐economic factors examined in this study, i.e., family income and maternal educational qualifications, were found to have a stronger effect on children's language/literacy than on social‐emotional competence. Socio‐economic disadvantage, lack of maternal educational qualifications in particular, remained powerful in influencing competencies in children aged three and at the start of primary school. For children in the first decade of this century in England, these findings have equity implications, especially as the socio‐economic gap in our society widens.     

Predictors of word‐reading ability in 7‐year‐olds: analysis of data from a U.K. cohort study

Previous U.K. population‐based studies have found associations amongst early speech and language difficulties, socioeconomic disadvantage and children's word‐reading ability later on. We examine the strength of these associations in a recent U.K. population‐based birth cohort. Analyses were based on 13,680 participants. Linear regression models were fitted to identify factors that were associated with word‐reading score at the age of 7 years. Path analysis models were fitted to examine phonological skills as a mediator of the relationships. We found that male gender, preterm birth, naming vocabulary at age five, concerns about speech and language, maternal education, type of housing tenure, lone parenting, parent attachment and frequency of reading to the child were all independently associated with word reading. For each of these predictors, there was evidence suggesting that a substantial proportion of the effect may be mediated by phonological skills (ranging from 52 to 89%). Despite policy intervention, many of the same risk factors identified in previous studies still predict children's word‐reading ability in the United Kingdom. Results support the phonological model, with phonological skills on the pathway to word reading.

What is already known about this topic?

• A range of studies has implicated poor socioeconomic background and disadvantaged family circumstances as risks for children's poor word reading.
• Good early development of language skills is firmly established as a pathway to promoting reading ability.
• Not all poor readers show deficits in phonological skills, although such deficits correlate highly with reading difficulties.

What this paper adds

• This is an original analysis of factors in a recent cohort of U.K. children, using stratified sampling to be representative of the U.K. population as a whole.
• A range of child‐specific, family socioeconomic and family relationship factors were independently associated with word‐reading ability when children were age seven.
• For each of the predictors, there was evidence suggesting that a substantial proportion of the effect, if causal, may be mediated by phonological skills (ranging from 52 to 89%).

Implications for theory, policy or practice

• Despite policy intervention, many of the same risk factors identified in older studies still predict children's word‐reading ability in the United Kingdom.
• Results lend weight to the phonological model, where deficits in phonological skills are on the pathway to word reading.

     

Deconstructing Building Blocks: Preschoolers' Spatial Assembly Performance Relates to Early Mathematical Skills

This study focuses on three main goals: First, 3‐year‐olds' spatial assembly skills are probed using interlocking block constructions (N = 102). A detailed scoring scheme provides insight into early spatial processing and offers information beyond a basic accuracy score. Second, the relation of spatial assembly to early mathematical skills was evaluated. Spatial skill independently predicted a significant amount of the variability in concurrent mathematical performance. Finally, the relation between spatial assembly skill and socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and parent‐reported spatial language was examined. While children's performance did not differ by gender, lower SES children were already lagging behind higher SES children in block assembly. Furthermore, lower SES parents reported using significantly fewer spatial words with their children.     

Stressful life experiences of children: The correspondence between professional judgments of teachers‐in‐training and children's perceptions

The extant studies reveal a considerable mismatch between students' and teachers' perceptions of student stress. The present study compared the judgments of teachers‐in‐training (N = 109) with the responses of first‐ and sixth‐grade children (n = 56 and 93, respectively). The following questions are addressed: (a) Do teachers' judgments of the stressfulness of children's experiences correspond with those of the children themselves? (b) Do teachers' perceptions differ according to general developmental status (first grade level versus sixth grade level)? (c) Does the amount of teaching experience have a significant influence on ratings? Results revealed that teachers' judgments corresponded more closely with the children's ratings at the first grade level than at the sixth grade level. However, teachers' perceptions did differ according to grade level for the majority of life events. Furthermore, there were no significant differences between the ratings of the experienced and inexperienced teachers at either grade level. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 807–821, 2007.