The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the influence of social-emotional competence (SEC) and various other student- and school-level variables on the academic achievement of kindergarteners. Data were collected on a nationally representative cohort of kindergarteners as part of the United States Department of Education's Early…

Despite the growing body of research on parents' beliefs and practices, relatively little is known about the relations between parents' knowledge of children's development, home-based activities, and children's early reading and math skills. This study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort to examine the differences in…

Extant literature suggests that oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors in childhood and adolescence are associated with distinct patterns of psychophysiological functioning, and that individual differences in these patterns have implications for developmental pathways to disorder. Very little is known about the…

Private and public investments in early childhood education have expanded significantly in recent years. Despite this heightened investment, we have little empirical evidence on whether children today enter school with different skills than they did in the late nineties. Using two large, nationally representative data sets, this article documents…

Each year, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) releases a list of scientific advances that represent significant progress in the field. The "2020 Summary of Advances in Autism Research" provides short, plain language summaries of the top research breakthroughs selected by the IACC from a pool of research articles…

Research Findings: This study examined the transactional nature of harsh parenting and emotion regulation across toddlerhood, including the moderating role of teacher sensitivity in child care. Secondary data analyses were conducted with a subsample of families from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project who participated in…

We tested the longitudinal measurement invariance of the Teacher Network of Relationships Inventory (TNRI), a teacher-report measure of teacher-student relationship quality (TSRQ), on a sample of 784 academically at-risk students across ages 6 to 15 years by comparing the model for each subsequent year with that of the previous year(s). The TNRI…

The present study examined the early parenting and temperament determinants of children's antisocial and positive behaviors in a low-income, diverse ethno-racial sample. Participants were from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, which included 960 European American (initial M age = 15.00 months; 51.2% female) and 880 African…

Private and public investments in early childhood education have expanded significantly in recent years. Despite this heightened investment, we have little empirical evidence on whether children today enter school with different skills than they did in the late nineties. Using two large, nationally representative datasets, this paper documents how…

That students' social and economic characteristics shape their cognitive and behavioral outcomes is well established, yet policymakers typically resist accepting that non-school disadvantages necessarily depress outcomes. Rather, they look to better schools and teachers to close achievement gaps, and consistently come up short. This report…

Despite the increasing prevalence of 3-generation family households (grandparent, parent, child), relatively little research has studied these households during early childhood. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Birth Cohort ("N" = ~6,550), this study investigated the associations between…

A number of studies have identified school mobility as one form of school disengagement that is disproportionately harmful for young children enrolled in large urban districts. However, there is substantial variation in these findings, with some studies actually evidencing positive associations between school mobility and academic outcomes (Mehana…

The relations between fathers' and mothers' home literacy involvement at 24 months and children's cognitive and social emotional development in preschool were examined using a large sample of African American and Caucasian families ("N" = 5190) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). Hierarchical…

Background: Deficient vocabulary is a frequently reported symptom of developmental language impairment, but the nature of the deficit and its developmental course are not well documented. Aims: To describe the nature of the deficit in terms of breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge and to determine whether the nature and the extent of the…

Following the ongoing increase in nonmarital fertility, policy makers have looked for ways to limit the disadvantages faced by children of unmarried mothers. Recent initiatives included marriage promotion and welfare-to-work programs. Yet policy might also consider the promotion of three generational households. We know little about whether…