The Contribution of Social-Emotional Readiness to Children's Social-Emotional Growth Trajectories in Low-Income, Rural Communities

• In Event: Unpacking Longitudinal Outcomes of School Readiness Among Low-Income and Ethnic-Minority Students: Findings From Four Projects

Abstract

There is growing consensus that social-emotional readiness makes unique contributions to children’s successful adjustment to school. Although longitudinal associations between social-emotional readiness and later outcomes have been documented, the extent to which social-emotional readiness predicts rates of change in development over time is not well-understood. Two perspectives offer competing hypotheses regarding the trajectories of children with different initial skills. Under the skill-begets-skill hypothesis, initially higher-skilled children are expected to show greater gains across time, resulting in widening or diverging trajectories between initially higher- and lower-skilled children (Heckman, 2008). Alternatively, under the catch-up hypothesis, initially lower-skilled children are expected to show greater growth relative to higher-skilled children, resulting in diminishing or converging skill trajectories over time (Barnett, 2011). To date, research testing these hypotheses generally has focused on academic readiness as a predictor of academic trajectories. More research is needed to understand how social-emotional functioning of initially higher- and lower-skilled children diverges or converges across the school years.

This study examined how three aspects of children’s social-emotional readiness (i.e., prosocial behavior, inattention, conduct problems) were related to social-emotional development in elementary school. Data were drawn from the Family Life Project, a large-scale longitudinal study of children and families living in high-poverty, rural counties in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, representing the Black South and Appalachia, respectively. This study utilized data collected during kindergarten through grade 3 (K-G3). Of 1292 participants enrolled in FLP, 1114 (86%) children provided some data during this period.

Trajectories of prosocial behavior, inattention, and conduct problems from K-G3 were examined in separate growth curve models. For each outcome, school-entry prosocial behavior, inattention, and conduct problems were entered as predictors of the intercept centered at G3 and slope for time (first in separate models and then in a single model to examine unique effects). Preliminary results are presented in Table 1. When readiness variables were entered as predictors in separate models, results indicated that school-entry levels of prosocial behavior, inattention, and conduct problems significantly predicted G3 levels (i.e., intercept) of all three outcomes in the expected directions. In addition, school-entry inattention predicted change in prosocial behavior and inattention over time, such that higher school-entry inattention was related to greater growth in prosocial behavior and greater reductions in inattention from K-G3. In other words, the prosocial behavior and inattention (Figure 1) of children who began school with different levels of inattention converged over time. Similarly, school-entry conduct problems significantly predicted change in all three outcomes, such that greater school-entry conduct problems were related to greater growth in prosocial behavior and greater reductions in inattention and conduct problems from K-G3. In other words, the prosocial behavior, inattention, and conduct problems (Figure 2) of children who began school with different levels of conduct problems converged over time. Thus, in some domains, the early school years represent a time of some “catch-up” for those at early behavioral risk. Some predictors dropped to nonsignificance when readiness predictors were entered simultaneously. Future analyses will explore classroom-level moderators of these associations. 

Authors

• Rachel M Abenavoli, The Pennsylvania State University

• Mark T. Greenberg, The Pennsylvania State University

• the Family Life Project Key Investigators