Poster #80 - Teacher-Family Relationship Quality as a Predictor of Children’s Social-Emotional Development in Toddler Classrooms

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Early Head Start (EHS) programs seek to support children from low-income families by providing early learning, health, and family well-being services (Office of Head Start, 2017). An important component of these services includes building positive relationships between programs and families. Previous studies have highlighted the association between teacher-parent relationship quality and children’s social development (Kim, Sheridan, Kwon, & Koziol, 2013). Few studies have examined this association in EHS toddler classrooms.
In this study, we investigated the following research questions: 1) Are teachers’ perceptions of the teacher-family relationship associated with children’s social-emotional development? and 2) To what extent do teachers’ perceptions of the teacher-family relationship predict children’s social-emotional development?
This current sample included 127 children Early Head Start children and 39 teachers across 8 centers and 19 classrooms. Children’s ages ranged from 8 to 43 months (M = 29.28, SD = 7.97). Most children were female (49.60%), 47.20% were identified as Latino, and 48.1% were identified as Black or African American. The teachers’ ages ranged from 25 to 65 (M = 41.62, SD = 11.28). All teachers were female (100%), 61.54% identified as Latino, and 35.90% identified as Black or African American.
Teachers reported their perception of their relationship with each child’s family using the caregiver form of the Parent-Caregiver Relationship Scale (PCRS; Elicker, Noppe, Noppe, & Fortner-Wood, 1997). For this sample, the total score demonstrated high internal reliability (α = .94). Teachers evaluated children’s social-emotional development using the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (BITSEA; Carter & Briggs-Gowan, 2006), which is made up of two scales, Competence (α = .75) and Problem (α = .83).
We conducted bivariate correlations between the PCRS total score and each scale of the BITSEA to determine if teachers’ perception of teacher-family relationship is significantly associated with children’s social./emotional competence and problem behaviors. We used multiple regression analysis to test if teachers’ perception of the teacher-family relationship significantly predicted children’s social-emotional development scores. We included children’s age and gender in the regression model to control for their effect on children’s social-emotional development.
Preliminary results suggest that teachers’ perception of the quality of their relationships with children’s families and children’s BITSEA Competence scale score were significantly correlated, r = .41, p < .01. There was also a significant negative correlation between teachers’ perception of their relationships with children’s families and children’s BITSEA Problem Behaviors scale score, r = -.19, p <.05 (see Table 1). Preliminary regression results indicate teachers’ perception of the teacher-family relationship quality with children’s families significantly predicts children’s social-emotional competence and problem behavior scores (see Table 2).
These findings suggest that children whose teachers and families have higher teacher-perceived relationship quality exhibit higher social competence and fewer problem behaviors. An extension of this study is to include children’s families’ perspectives of the teacher-family relationship and their reports of their children’s social-emotional development at home to more completely measure these constructs. Understanding the relationships between EHS programs and families can help programs to make policy decisions that will ultimately benefit the children’s social-emotional development through family services.

Authors

• Dorothy Michelle Sanchez, University of Miami
  Presenting Author

• Veronica Andrea Fernandez, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Johayra Bouza, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Claudia Perez, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Santiago Garcia, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• William Augustin Pacetti, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daryl Greenfield, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author