Poster #67 - Who Stays School Ready? Using Latent Transition Analysis to Study Change Across the PreK Year

• In Event: Poster Session 07

Abstract

During the PreK year, many children successfully adapt to new environments, despite environmental influences, stress, or adversity (Cantor et al., 2019). These responses, described in the literature as school readiness (Halle et al., 2012; Kagan et al., 1995), include multiple domains encompassing academic and non-cognitive skills. Identifying adaption can provide essential information about the multitude of adaption pathways and represent a strengths-based approach to school readiness (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2012; Sandilos et al., 2019).
Person-centered approaches may account for the heterogeneity in children’s adaptive responses and reveal profiles of resilience (Abenavoli et al., 2017). Several studies have used person-centered approaches to study school readiness (Abenavoli et al., 2017; McWayne et al., 2012, Bierman et al., 2009). However, more work is needed to examine how children’s collection of adaptive skills may change over the school year.
This study utilized the Head Start Families and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2014 cohort data, a national probability sample of Head Start children (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018). The final sample included 2,105 children. This included approximately 58% boys. The average age at Head Start entry was 48.12 months (SD=4.01). Most children were Hispanic (35%), followed by African American (21%), and White (20%). 63% of the children attended Head Start as 3-year-olds.
During the fall of 2014 and the spring of 2015, FACES 2014 staff conducted one-on-one assessments that measured children’s executive function (UG, 2018). Immediately following the assessment period, raters evaluated children’s behavior during the assessment. In both fall and spring, teachers completed a questionnaire that rated children’s approaches to learning, sociability, and problem behaviors. To assess executive function, the children completed the pencil tapping task, where the child did the opposite of what the assessor did, i.e., tap once if the assessor taps twice (Blair, 2002). Assessors completed the Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised (Roid & Miller, 1997), a 4-point Likert-type scale that evaluates the frequency of children’s behavior. For this study, three subscales were used: attention, activity level, and sociability. Finally, Head Start teachers completed a Teacher-Child Report, wherein they rated children’s cooperative classroom behavior, problem behaviors, and approaches to learning.
Data preparation and descriptive analyses were conducted in SPSS Statistics version 23. Latent variable modeling and multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted in Mplus version 7 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998). Latent profiles were initially conducted separately in fall and spring to confirm that similar profiles existed at both time points. Latent transition analysis was then conducted to determine which children transitioned between groups across the two-time points. Finally, multinomial logistic regressions examined whether child and family demographic characteristics predicted transition groupings.
Preliminary data analysis reveals five profiles at Head Start entry and three profiles in the spring. The majority of the sample (35%) experienced a positive transition, where school readiness skills increased from the beginning of the year, and a quarter (23%) remained in the same profile from fall to spring. Initial analysis revealed that boys and younger children were more likely to experience a negative transition than girls.

Author

• Amber Beisly, University of Oklahoma
  Presenting Author