Examination of Socioemotional Adjustment Trajectories in Early Childhood: Application of Multilevel Latent Transition Mixture Modeling

• In Event: Longitudinal Studies of Social and Academic Processes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to (1) identify possible underlying subgroups of childhood problems using recently validated scale scores of socioemotional adjustment and to estimate the predictive relationship that subgroup membership had on reading achievement as a distal outcome, and (2) demonstrate methodological utility of multilevel latent transition analysis, which includes latent class analysis, autoregressive modeling, and hierarchically structured data, in this area of research. Using a subsample from the Head Start Impact Study, we identified two latent class of students at each of two time points. We provided the transition probabilities between classes across time and also discovered a sizeable yet not statistically significant relationship between latent class transition and end-of-year reading proficiency.

Authors

• Grant B. Morgan, Baylor University

• Kevin Wells, Baylor University

• Paul A. McDermott, University of Pennsylvania