Maltreatment Types and Social Emotional and Academic Outcomes in Children Eligible for Early Head Start

• In Event: 2-046 - Relationship of Child Outcomes to Child Maltreatment Types, Social Networks, and Early Head Start Programming

Integrative Statement

Evidence strongly suggests that diverse patterns of maltreatment are associated with disparate causes and consequences for children, yet our knowledge about children's particular maltreatment experiences is limited (Institutes of Medicine & National Research Council, 2013). This study uses administrative child welfare data from 16 program sites that participated in a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of Early Head Start (EHS). We investigate associations among program status, children’s experiences of different types of maltreatment from birth to Grade 5, and child outcomes at Grade 5 (social, emotional, academic competence)

The full EHSCW study sample includes 2,794 children in 16 communities who were randomly assigned to a program or a control group in the original RCT of EHS. Child welfare administrative data were collected from state agencies and connected to children’s social, emotional and academic outcomes assessed in 5th grade. For analyses, children were grouped according to the type of maltreatment they experienced between birth and Grade 5 (i.e., neglect only, abuse only, both abuse and neglect, no maltreatment) and children who only experienced neglect were the reference group in subsequent analyses (see Table 1).

Results of linear regression models conducted in Mplus using FIML to estimate missing data and controlling for program site, child age, gender, and race, and family demographic risk showed that children who had experienced substantiated neglect between birth to Grade 5 had lower PPVT, language/literacy, and math scores and higher externalizing behavior scores compared to children who had not been maltreated. Children who experienced substantiated abuse had higher externalizing and internalizing behavior than children who experienced neglect (see Table 2).

Further, the association of EHS program status and PPVT scores at 5th grade was moderated by type of maltreatment (b = 10.39, SE = 4.52, p = .02) such that children in the control group who experienced abuse of any disposition had lower PPVT scores than children who experienced neglect, whereas children’s PPVT scores in the program group did not differ significantly for children who experienced abuse compared to neglect. Findings indicate a potential buffering effect of participation in the EHS program on academic outcomes for abused children.

Authors

• Catherine Ayoub, Childrens Hospital Boston, Harvard University
  Presenting Author

• Katherine Buttita, Childrens Hospital Boston, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adam VonEnde, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie Kao, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author