Poster #99 - Residential Instability, Homelessness, and Executive Functioning of Preschoolers

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Children who experience homelessness and residential instability are at risk for poor developmental outcomes across domains of functioning, including components of school readiness like worse self-regulation and poor cognitive functioning (Masten et al., 2012; Roy, McCoy, & Raver, 2014). Nevertheless, many children who experience residential instability demonstrate resilience by showing developmental competence (Obradović, 2010), likely the result of protective factors in the child’s life like positive relationships (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). This study tests for risk associated with housing instability on executive functioning (EF) of preschoolers. EF refers to a set of metacognitive abilities like inhibitory control, executive attention, cognitive flexibility, and working memory, important for goal directed behavior. Furthermore, we test for moderation of risk by a broadband measure of protective factors, expecting higher EF scores for children experiencing residential instability and high protective factor scores compared to residentially unstable peers with lower protective factor scores. Data come from a larger study of school readiness.
Children and their families were attending a summer preschool program in Camden, NJ.

Children (n = 56) were between 3 and 5 years old. Additional sample characteristics are provided as Table 1. Parents completed questionnaires that included demographic information and the Shortlist of Assets and Resources (SOAR) which includes 15 items asking parents to rate the degree to which established protective factors are present in their child’s life. Parents also reported on current housing situation, including indicating homelessness and housing instability, as part of the preschool enrollment process in the subsequent fall. Children completed four measures of EF: (1) the Flanker task of the NIH Toolbox (iPad App Version; Slotkin et al., 2012), (2) the Dimensional Change Card Sort with developmental extension of the NIH Toolbox (DCCS; Slotkin et al., 2012), (3) Forward Digit Span (Petermann & Petermann, 2011), and (4) Head-Shoulders-Knees-Toes (Ponitz, McClelland, Jewkes, Connor, Farris, & Morrison, 2008). Scores were standardized and showed acceptable reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.73 in the larger study). Scores were averaged to produce a single indicator of EF

Regressions tested for main effects of housing instability, protective factor score, and the interaction of protective factor scores and housing instability on child EF, controlling for child age and gender. There was a degree of missing data, the patterns of which did not appear to violate assumptions of Missing At Random. We performed multiple imputation with fully-conditional specification using SPSS for Windows version 25 and results were pooled across 20 imputed data sets. Neither homelessness/housing instability (B = 0.12; stdErrB = 0.21; p = .56) nor SOAR protective factor scores (B = 0.00; stdErrB = 0.01; p = .86) were significant predictors of EF when considered simultaneously as main effects. The interaction term was similarly nonsignificant when added to the model (B = .00; stdErrB = .02; p = .77). Results will be discussed in the contexts of urban poverty, high quality preschool, and racial/ethnic minority students.

Authors

• Nitan Shanas, Rutgers University-Camden
  Presenting Author

• Patrick Michael Hanlin, Rutgers University - Camden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alec Morrow, Rutgers University-Camden
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brittney Twyman, Rutgers University-Camden
  Non-Presenting Author

• J. J. Cutuli, Rutgers University - Camden
  Non-Presenting Author