C. Cybele Raver

CSRP’s Impact on Low-Income Preschoolers’ Preacademic Skills: Self-Regulation as a Mediating Mechanism

Based on theoretically driven models, the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) targeted low-income childrens school readiness through the mediating mechanism of self-regulation. The CSRP is a multicomponent, cluster-randomized efficacy trial implemented in 35 Head Start-funded classrooms (N = 602 children). The analyses confirm that the CSRP improved low-income childrens self-regulation skills (as indexed by attention/impulse control and executive function) from fall to spring of the Head Start year. Analyses also suggest significant benefits of CSRP for childrens preacademic skills, as measured by vocabulary, letter-naming, and math skills. Partial support was found for improvement in childrens self-regulation as a hypothesized mediator for childrens gains in academic readiness. Implications for programs and policies that support young childrens behavioral health and academic success are discussed.

Child Development in the Context of Adversity Experiential Canalization of Brain and Behavior

The authors examine the effects of poverty-related adversity on child development, drawing upon psychobiological principles of experiential canalization and the biological embedding of experience. They integrate findings from research on stress physiology, neurocognitive function, and self-regulation to consider adaptive processes in response to adversity as an aspect of childrens development. Recent research on early caregiving is paired with research in prevention science to provide a reorientation of thinking about the ways in which psychosocial and economic adversity are related to continuity in human development.

School Readiness and Self-Regulation: A Developmental Psychobiological Approach

Research on the development of self-regulation in young children provides a unifying framework for the study of school readiness. Self-regulation abilities allow for engagement in learning activities and provide the foundation for adjustment to school. A focus on readiness as self-regulation does not supplant interest in the development of acquired ability, such as early knowledge of letters and numbers; it sets the stage for it. In this article, we review research and theory indicating that self-regulation and consequently school readiness are the product of integrated developmental processes at the biological and behavioral levels that are shaped by the contexts in which development is occurring. In doing so, we illustrate the idea that research on self-regulation powerfully highlights ways in which gaps in school readiness and later achievement are linked to poverty and social and economic inequality and points the way to effective approaches to counteract these conditions.

Poverty as a Predictor of 4-Year-Olds' Executive Function: New Perspectives on Models of Differential Susceptibility

In a predominantly low-income, population-based longitudinal sample of 1,259 children followed from birth, results suggest that chronic exposure to poverty and the strains of financial hardship were each uniquely predictive of young childrens performance on measures of executive functioning. Results suggest that temperament-based vulnerability serves as a statistical moderator of the link between poverty-related risk and childrens executive functioning. Implications for models of ecology and biology in shaping the development of childrens self-regulation are discussed.

Allostasis and allostatic load in the context of poverty in early childhood.

This paper examined the relation of early environmental adversity associated with poverty to child resting or basal level of cortisol in a prospective longitudinal sample of 1135 children seen at 7, 15, 24, 35, and 48 months of age. We found main effects for poor housing quality, African American ethnicity, and low positive caregiving behavior in which each was uniquely associated with an overall higher level of cortisol from age 7 to 48 months. We also found that two aspects of the early environment in the context of poverty, adult exits from the home and perceived economic insufficiency, were related to salivary cortisol in a time-dependent manner. The effect for the first of these, exits from the home, was consistent with the principle of allostatic load in which the effects of adversity on stress physiology accumulate over time. The effect for perceived economic insufficiency was one in which insufficiency was associated with higher levels of cortisol in infancy but with a typical but steeper decline in cortisol with age at subsequent time points.

Closing the Achievement Gap through Modification of Neurocognitive and Neuroendocrine Function: Results from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of an Innovative Approach to the Education of Children in Kindergarten

Effective early education is essential for academic achievement and positive life outcomes, particularly for children in poverty. Advances in neuroscience suggest that a focus on self-regulation in education can enhance children’s engagement in learning and establish beneficial academic trajectories in the early elementary grades. Here, we experimentally evaluate an innovative approach to the education of children in kindergarten that embeds support for self-regulation, particularly executive functions, into literacy, mathematics, and science learning activities. Results from a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 29 schools, 79 classrooms, and 759 children indicated positive effects on executive functions, reasoning ability, the control of attention, and levels of salivary cortisol and alpha amylase. Results also demonstrated improvements in reading, vocabulary, and mathematics at the end of kindergarten that increased into the first grade. A number of effects were specific to high-poverty schools, suggesting that a focus on executive functions and associated aspects of self-regulation in early elementary education holds promise for closing the achievement gap.

The Effect of Local Violence on Children’s Attention and Impulse Control

OBJECTIVES We examined whether the burden of violence in a childs community environment alters the childs behavior and functioning in the classroom setting. METHODS To identify the effects of local violence, we exploited variation in the timing of local homicides, based on data from the Chicago Police Department, relative to the timing of interview assessments conducted as part of a randomized controlled trial conducted with preschoolers in Head Start programs from 2004-2006, the Chicago School Readiness Project. We compared childrens scores when exposed to recent local violence with scores when no recent violence had occurred to identify causal effects. RESULTS When children were assessed within a week of a homicide that occurred near their home, they exhibited lower levels of attention and impulse control and lower preacademic skills. The analysis showed strong positive effects of local violence on parental distress, providing suggestive evidence that parental responses may be a likely pathway by which local violence affects young children. CONCLUSIONS Exposure to homicide generates acute psychological distress among caregivers and impairs childrens self-regulatory behavior and cognitive functioning.

Two Approaches to Estimating the Effect of Parenting on the Development of Executive Function in Early Childhood.

In the current article, we contrast 2 analytical approaches to estimate the relation of parenting to executive function development in a sample of 1,292 children assessed longitudinally between the ages of 36 and 60 months of age. Children were administered a newly developed and validated battery of 6 executive function tasks tapping inhibitory control, working memory, and attention shifting. Residualized change analysis indicated that higher quality parenting as indicated by higher scores on widely used measures of parenting at both earlier and later time points predicted more positive gain in executive function at 60 months. Latent change score models in which parenting and executive function over time were held to standards of longitudinal measurement invariance provided additional evidence of the association between change in parenting quality and change in executive function. In these models, cross-lagged paths indicated that in addition to parenting predicting change in executive function, executive function bidirectionally predicted change in parenting quality. Results were robust with the addition of covariates, including child sex, race, maternal education, and household income-to-need. Strengths and drawbacks of the 2 analytic approaches are discussed, and the findings are considered in light of emerging methodological innovations for testing the extent to which executive function is malleable and open to the influence of experience.

Low-Income Children's Self-Regulation in the Classroom: Scientific Inquiry for Social Change.

Over 21% of children in the United States today are poor, and the income gap between our nations richest and poorest children has widened dramatically over time. This article considers childrens self-regulation as a key mediating mechanism through which poverty has deleterious consequences for their later life outcomes. Evidence from field experiments suggests that low-income childrens self-regulation is modifiable by early educational intervention, offering a powerful policy option for reducing povertys negative impact. The author discusses ways that scientific models of self-regulation can be expanded to include multiple developmental periods and real-world classroom contexts. Recommendations for advances in research design, measurement, and analysis are discussed, as are implications for policy formation and evaluation.

Poverty, Stress, and Brain Development: New Directions for Prevention and Intervention

We review some of the growing evidence of the costs of poverty to childrens neuroendocrine function, early brain development, and cognitive ability. We underscore the importance of addressing the negative consequences of poverty-related adversity early in childrens lives, given evidence supporting the plasticity of executive functions and associated physiologic processes in response to early intervention and the importance of higher order cognitive functions for success in school and in life. Finally, we highlight some new directions for prevention and intervention that are rapidly emerging at the intersection of developmental science, pediatrics, child psychology and psychiatry, and public policy.