We leveraged nationally representative data from the Panel study of Income Dynamics-Child Development Supplement (N = 3,562) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal study (N = 18,174), to chart the development of working memory, indexed via verbal forward and backward digit span task performance, from 3 to 19 years of age. Results revealed nonlinear…

Performance on a range of spatial and mathematics tasks was measured in a sample of 1592 students in kindergarten, third grade, and sixth grade. In a previously published analysis of these data, performance was analyzed by grade only. In the present analyses, we examined whether the relations between spatial skill and mathematics skill differed…

Objectives: The importance of breastfeeding exposure and children's development of self-regulation, independently, are well established. Each of these domains also has been linked to better cognitive development and academic achievement in children. However, little is known about how breastfeeding affects development of early self-regulation…

This study examined factors associated with students with disabilities (SWDs)' STEM major choice in postsecondary institutions. The major findings included: (1) SWDs with difficulty conversing had a greater likelihood of choosing STEM majors compared with their counterparts without such a difficulty in both two- and four-year institutions; (2)…

Skin tone-based social stratification is an enduring part of the U.S. racial landscape. Despite literature finding that skin tone informs educational outcomes among adults, few studies have examined these processes in early childhood. The current study tested whether skin tone predicted Mexican-origin 5-year-old children's academic readiness…

This study examined the unique and interactive effects of teacher-child relationships and classroom quality on PreK to Grade 1 children's reading and math achievement, social skills, and problem behaviors, as well as whether these relationships differed by children's race and ethnicity. Based on data from 192 children (18.23% Black, 8.33% Latine…

This study examined the unique and interactive effects of teacher-child relationships and classroom quality on PreK to Grade 1 children's reading and math achievement, social skills, and problem behaviors, as well as whether these relationships differed by children's race and ethnicity. Based on data from 192 children (18.23% Black, 8.33% Latine…

In the current investigation, we used structural equation mediation modeling to examine the relations between executive function (indexed by measures of working memory, shifting, and inhibition), decoding ability, and reading comprehension in a sample of 298 children aged 6 to 8 years (132 boys and 166 girls). Results indicated that executive…

This research tested a mediation model, examining whether individual differences in mothers' school readiness beliefs influenced home literacy practices and children's later academic achievement among African American (n = 114) and primarily Mexican origin Latina mothers (n = 164) and their children. Mothers of children ages 3-4 years reported…

Cultural contexts influence the development of self-regulation. However, cross-cultural variations and consistencies in different aspects of self-regulation and their academic outcomes within the Asian context are less clear. This study investigated (1) the extent to which the development of hot and cool Executive Function (EF) might differ among…

Parents provide motivational and cognitive support within the same interaction, yet researchers have investigated these separately. We examined two key aspects of parental support, praise (motivational support) and spatial language (cognitive support), from fathers and mothers during three tasks with their first-grade children (6-7-year-olds; N =…

This study investigated developmental trajectories of reading and math using latent-growth-curve analyses across multiple academic skills, measures, and multiple time periods within a single sample. Reading-related growth was marked by significant individual differences during the early elementary-school period and nonsignificant individual…

A major challenge for juvenile correctional facilities (JCF) is providing literacy instruction to a transitory student population with a wide range of literacy abilities. The purpose of this study was to identify unique literacy profiles of students in long-term JCF taking into consideration their reading abilities, language abilities,…

Despite the promising future of employment opportunities in occupations related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), women remain underrepresented in some STEM occupational fields. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study the role of gender differences in achievement and self-perceived ability in math…

In the present study, we investigated the relative impact of age- versus schooling-related growth in school readiness skills using four modeling approaches that leverage natural variation in longitudinal data collected within the preschool year. Our goal was to demonstrate the applicability of different analytic techniques that do not rely on…