Eleanor D. Brown

Maternal Relationship Instability and the School Behavior of Children from Disadvantaged Families.

This longitudinal study examined the relation between the instability of maternal intimate relationships and the school behavior of 3rd-grade children from economically disadvantaged families. After ecological correlates were controlled, chronic relationship instability predicted externalizing behavior for boys and girls and internalizing behavior for girls, but not academic competence. In addition, past and recent instability had independent effects: Recent instability moderated the relation for past instability, and child adjustment in highly unstable families varied with verbal ability and aspects of the family ecology. The theoretical implications concern conceptualizations of the diverse and dynamic nature of family arrangements experienced by disadvantaged children.

Chaotic living conditions and sleep problems associated with children's responses to academic challenge.

The ecology of economic disadvantage includes chaotic living conditions that may disrupt childrens regulatory functioning and undermine mastery oriented responses to challenge. The present study examined chaotic living conditions, sleep problems, and responses to academic challenge for 96 economically disadvantaged children enrolled in a Head Start preschool. Caregiver interviews provided information regarding chaotic living conditions of residential crowding, noise, and family instability, as well as child sleep problems. Tasks individually administered to children provided measures of responses to academic challenge. Chaotic living conditions statistically predicted helpless/hopeless responses to academic challenge, and sleep problems partially mediated this relationship. Implications concern pathways of ecological risk and diversity in the school functioning of economically disadvantaged children.

Family adversity and inhibitory control for economically disadvantaged children: preschool relations and associations with school readiness.

This study examined longitudinal relations linking aspects of family adversity to inhibitory control and school readiness for 120 economically disadvantaged children attending a Head Start preschool. The aspects of family adversity included income-to-needs ratios and an adversity index representing family instability and family chaos. The results showed that the adversity index but not the income ratios contributed to explaining diversity in the development of inhibitory control over the course of the preschool year. Additionally, the adversity index predicted school readiness at the end of the year, and the results suggested that inhibitory control mediated this effect. The implications concern understanding family sources of diversity in inhibitory control for economically disadvantaged preschool children.

persistence in the face of academic challenge for economically disadvantaged children

This study examined persistence in the face of academic challenge for economically disadvantaged children. Participants included 103 children attending Head Start preschools, as well as their caregivers and teachers. Child tasks measured persistence in the face of academic challenge as well as emergent implicit theories of intelligence. Caregiver interviews provided information about poverty risks. Teacher interviews measured child attention problems. A cumulative index of poverty risks, as well as teacher-reported child attention problems and child emergent implicit theories of intelligence predicted persistence in the face of challenge. Implications concern conceptualizing persistence in the face of academic challenge, understanding diversity in educational outcomes for economically disadvantaged children and closing the achievement gap.

Contextual Risk, Maternal Negative Emotionality, and the Negative Emotion Dysregulation of Preschool Children From Economically Disadvantaged Families

Research Findings: This study examined relations between contextual risk, maternal negative emotionality, and preschool teacher reports of the negative emotion dysregulation of children from economically disadvantaged families. Contextual risk was represented by cumulative indexes of family and neighborhood adversity. The results showed a direct pathway linking family adversity to child negative emotion dysregulation and indirect pathways for both family and neighborhood adversity through maternal negative emotionality. Practice or Policy: The results suggest the importance of conceptualizing distal and contextual aspects of the ecology of disadvantage as well as more proximal caregiving variables in interventions targeted for young children showing negative emotion dysregulation.

Parent teaching, cumulative instability and school readiness for children attending Head Start preschool

ABSTRACT This study investigated relations between parent teaching, cumulative instability/chaos and school readiness in a group of 130 children attending a Head Start preschool. Cumulative instability/chaos negatively predicted fall school readiness as well as spring school readiness. Parent teaching did not predict fall school readiness but did predict spring school readiness. Fall school readiness predicted spring school readiness, suggesting the possibility that this variable helped to carry the effect of cumulative instability/chaos, as measured in the fall of the preschool year, to spring school readiness. Fall school readiness mediated the relationship between fall cumulative instability and spring school readiness. Implications for intervention efforts are discussed.