The field of education has long emphasized the importance of kindergarten teachers perceiving and understanding students' thoughts and feelings and expressing concern, commonly referred to as teacher empathy. However, little work has focused on the "cost of caring," such as compassion fatigue, particularly among kindergarten teachers,…

Self-regulation is arguably one of the most crucial predictors of school readiness, academic achievement, and lifelong well-being. While educators in the prior-to-school years have a pivotal role to play in stimulating growth in early self-regulation, less is known about their knowledge and practices in this area. This interview study was…

Current evidence-based prevention programming targeting child externalizing problems demonstrates modest overall effect sizes and is largely ineffective for a sizable proportion of youth who participate. However, our understanding of the youth and family characteristics associated with response to specific programming is quite limited. The current…

The daily report card (DRC) is a commonly used behavioral intervention in which teachers rate child performance on target goals and parents provide home rewards based on the child's performance. The current study investigated associations between child externalizing problems, empathy, and specific components of the DRC: (1) types of DRC goals that…

Background: Decades of research demonstrating the critical role of executive function (EF) and other regulation-related skills on children's short- and long-term outcomes has generated interest in measuring and cultivating these critical skills in early childhood and elementary school children (e.g., Bull et al., 2008; Moffitt et al., 2011). Most…

Prior short-term studies have shown the effectiveness of worked examples and self-explanation prompts in improving elementary students' mathematics knowledge. However, year-long classroom-based interventions have been tested only with older students. The purpose of the current study was to explore the effectiveness of a year-long classroom…

This meta-analysis synthesized the findings of experimental and quasi-experimental studies to determine the efficacy of math interventions for enhancing the word problem-solving accuracy of students with mathematics difficulties in Grades 4 to 12. Further, we identified intervention and design characteristics that moderate the effectiveness of…

Background: We present results of the development and feasibility testing of CATCH Healthy Smiles, a school-based oral health program, among children in grades K-2 in Houston, Texas. Methods: Study design was cross-sectional (N = 2 schools; N = 125 parent-child dyads; 31 kindergarteners, 42 first graders, and 52 second graders). CATCH Healthy…

Faculty trust and student bullying are two salient properties known to affect school environments. Indeed, the presence of organizational trust bolsters student achievement and promotes school safety, thus making schools more effective, although bullying behaviors abate the effectiveness of schools. Therefore, understanding potential relationships…

Along with increased attention to universal screening for identifying social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) concerns is the need to ensure the psychometric adequacy of tools available. Nearly all extant tests of universal SEB screening validity focus on traditional inferential forms with little to no study of the consequences of actions…

Objectives: This study investigated the unique associations of motor competence and ADHD risk status on school functioning. Additionally, this study examined the factor structure of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Short Form (BOT2-SF). Methods: Participants included early elementary school children (N = 202, M[subscript age] =…

To address the needs of a diverse group of students with reading difficulties, a majority of researchers over the last decade have designed and implemented multicomponent reading interventions (MCRIs) that provide instruction in multiple areas of reading yielding mixed results. The current study evaluates whether students' baseline word reading…

Although teachers are key in bullying intervention, little is known about their responses to bullying and how students perceive them. This study investigated whether experimentally manipulated teacher responses in vignettes (i.e., non-response, comforting victim, correcting bully, both comforting victim and correcting bully) predict differences in…

Traumatic events are becoming more prevalent in youth, especially considering the increase in disaster exposure, impacting the wellbeing and mental health of youth. Youth in rural communities are more adversely impacted due to a lack of access to available support and services. Interventions geared toward treating traumatic stress are needed for…

The potential benefits and mechanistic effects of working memory training (WMT) in children are the subject of much research and debate. We show that after five weeks of school-based, adaptive WMT 6-9 year-old primary school children had greater activity in prefrontal and striatal brain regions, higher task accuracy, and reduced intra-individual…