Familial supports and parental investments: Supporting Latino children’s self-regulation development

• In Event: 1-132 - Supportive home and classroom contexts as protective factors for Latino children’s academic outcomes

Integrative Statement

It is important to identify mechanisms through which working memory and approaches to learning develop in order to establish a sound foundation for young children to progress successfully through school.  However, current conventional approaches to studying development of self-regulation neglect how the environments that foster self-regulation and the strategies employed to cultivate self-regulation may vary according to the ethnicity of the child. Therefore, research needs to examine how working memory and approaches to learning develop within ethnic groups, not simply to close gaps in school readiness (Brooks-Gunn & Markman, 2005) but to ensure that self-regulation research is reflective of children’s cultural background (Trommsdorff & Cole, 2011; Li-Grining, 2012). While prior work has taken a within group approach regarding emotional and behavioral regulation (LeCuyer & Zhang, 2015; Trommsdorff, 2011), our paper will make a contribution by elucidating familial factors that promote the development of working memory and approaches to learning of Latino children.

We conducted structural equation modeling (Stata 14.0; StataCorp) with Latino children from the ECLSK: 2011 Kindergarten to Second Grade Restricted Dataset (Tourangeau et al., 2017). We first modeled the association between family supports and working memory (Numbers Reversed Task), and approaches to learning (e.g., persists in completing tasks, pays attention well, and follows classroom rules) in second grade, controlling for kindergarten scores; subsequent models also includes environmental resources, school engagement, and stable routines. Composites (Table 1) for familial supports, environmental resources, school engagement, and stable routine were constructed from the parent interviews administered in fall and spring of kindergarten (alpha range: .60 - .82). Given the linguistic diversity of the Latino community, we also examined the moderating effect of speaking Spanish at home.

Related to familial supports (Table 2), findings suggest that parental stress, an indicator that the child requires sacrifice and places strain on the emotional state of the parent, arises as an aspect of familial support especially critical to Latino children’s development of working memory (WM) and approaches to learning (AtL), contributing to a decrease in their performance through elementary school. Findings do not change when environmental resources and school engagement are added to the model. Environmental resources such as academically engaging activities in the home environment are negatively associated with AtL but not associated with WM, while home literacy is positively associated with AtL. Engaging in extracurricular activities is positively associated with WM but not AtL. Finally, with regards to school engagement, parental attendance to school events is positively associated with AtL but not WM, while endorsing school readiness factors is positively associated with WM but not AtL. Despite the possibility that familial supports may manifest different in linguistically diverse families, there were no interaction effects with speaking Spanish at home and the various factors tested in these models.

Overall, the study highlights the significance of familial supports, environmental resources, and engagement with school in supporting Latino children’s WM and AtL. Discussion will focus on why these processes may function differently for the two outcomes, as well as the relevance to policy and practice.

Authors

• Tatiana Yasmeen Hill, University of Virginia
  Presenting Author

• Natalia Palacios, University of Virginia
  Non-Presenting Author