Research Findings: The Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (IY-TCM) program has shown efficacy in reducing behavioral problems and improving social skills among children experiencing poverty. However, quantitative studies that concentrate on its efficacy in relation to "proximal classroom outcomes" (e.g., classroom emotional…

Research Findings: Children's readiness to handle the expectations of elementary school depends heavily on their self-regulation skills. Self-regulation includes both cognitive and behavioral elements; however, past studies have typically looked at cognitive and behavioral self-regulation in isolation or as a composite score rather than examining…

This secondary analysis explored longitudinal associations between the concentration of shared-language peers and the development of prosocial and problem behavior in dual language learning (DLL) preschoolers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Mixed-effects regression models were used to analyze year-end outcomes of 212 Spanish-speaking students…

Research Findings: The present study examined the degree to which the association between interactive peer play and academic skills was dependent upon the level of classroom quality for a representative sample of culturally and linguistically diverse urban Head Start children (N = 304 children across 53 classrooms). Peer play interactions within…

Research Findings: There is growing acknowledgment of the need for parenting interventions to address early-onset behavior and emotional concerns. Favorable child outcomes have been linked to parents' responsiveness and positive expressiveness. Given the theoretical and empirical link between perceptions and actual behavior, Head Start mothers…

Research Findings: Supportive mother-child interactions promote the development of social-emotional competence. Poverty and other associated psychosocial risk factors have a negative impact on mother-child interaction. In spite of Latino children being disproportionately represented among children living in poverty, research on mother-child…

Research Findings: This study explored the role Head Start teachers' (n = 355) depressive symptoms play in their interactions with children and in children's (n = 2,203) social-emotional development, specifically changes in children's problem behaviors and social skills as reported by parents and teachers during the preschool year. Results of the…

Research Findings: This study used a within-group research design and person-centered analytic methods to identify multidimensional profiles of parenting styles, parenting practices, and related emotional factors in a sample of 274 African American mothers recruited from Head Start programs in the northeastern and southeastern United States.…

Research Findings: This exploratory study encompassed a collaboration to implement and evaluate the early efficacy of Banking Time, a dyadic intervention designed to promote supportive teacher-child relationships. Banking Time is a set of one-on-one meetings between a teacher and a child consisting of child-led play and teacher facilitation…

Research Findings: The current project examined the unique and interactive relations of child effortful control and teacher-child relationships to low-income preschoolers' socioemotional adjustment. One hundred and forty Head Start children (77 boys and 63 girls), their parents, lead teachers, and teacher assistants participated in this study.…

Research Findings: This study examined the stability of preschoolers' peer play behavior across the school year and the relations between emotion regulation, receptive vocabulary, and the trajectory of social competence deficits. Participants were 331 preschool children attending Head Start; they were primarily African American and from a low-SES…

Early development is likely influenced by quality of early parenting and improvements or declines in quality over time. Little is known about how changes in different dimensions of parenting influence child outcomes, nor the relative sizes of associations when considering several aspects simultaneously. These questions are addressed in the Early…

Examined behavior problems of African American children attending Head Start in violent neighborhoods. Found Child Behavior Checklist externalization scores significantly higher than standardization sample; higher percentages of boys than girls had severe internalizing problems; higher percentages of girls than boys had severe externalizing…

Empirical research shows that poor emotional competence is an early risk factor for the development of psychopathology. Numerous school-based prevention programs have been developed with the goal of decreasing behavior problems. Several of these programs include a discrete emotions component, but none of them are solely or primarily guided by…