Poverty-Related Adversity and Emotion Regulation Predict Internalizing Behavior Problems among Low-Income Children Ages 8-11.

The current study examines the additive and joint roles of chronic poverty-related adversity and three candidate neurocognitive processes of emotion regulation (ER)-including: (i) attention bias to threat (ABT); (ii) accuracy of facial emotion appraisal (FEA); and (iii) negative affect (NA)-for low-income, ethnic minority children's internalizing problems ( = 338). Children were enrolled in the current study from publicly funded preschools, with poverty-related adversity assessed at multiple time points from early to middle childhood. Field-based administration of neurocognitively-informed assessments of ABT, FEA and NA as well as parental report of internalizing symptoms were collected when children were ages 8-11, 6 years after baseline.

The Roles of School Readiness and Poverty-Related Risk for 6 Grade Outcomes.

Low-income students are at increased risk for grade retention and suspension, which dampens their chances of high school graduation, college attendance, and future success. Drawing from a sample of 357 children and their families who participated in the Chicago School Readiness Project, we examine whether greater exposure to cumulative poverty-related risk from preschool through 5 grade is associated with greater risk of student retention and suspension in 6 grade. Logistic regression results indicate that exposure to higher levels of cumulative risk across the elementary school years is associated with students' increased risk of retention in 6 grade, even after controlling for child school readiness skills and other covariates.

Gender disparities among the association between cumulative family-level stress & adolescent weight status.

Objective: To investigate precursors to gender-related obesity disparities by examining multiple family-level stress indices.

Methods: Analyses was based on adolescents born between 1975 and 1991 to women from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth data set (N=4762). Three types of family-level stressors were captured from birth to age 15: family disruption and conflict, financial strain, and maternal risky health behaviors, along with a total cumulative risk index.

Accumulation of childhood poverty on young adult overweight or obese status: race/ethnicity and gender disparities.

Background: Childhood poverty is positively correlated with overweight status during childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Repeated exposure of childhood poverty could contribute to race/ethnicity and gender disparities in young adult overweight/obese (OV/OB) weight status.

Methods: Young adults born between 1980 and 1990 who participated in the Young Adult file of the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth were examined (N=3901).

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 children's 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 children's self-regulation skills (as indexed by attention/impulse control and executive function) from fall to spring of the Head Start year.

Dosage effects on school readiness: evidence from a randomized classroom-based intervention.

Variations in the dosage of social interventions and the effects of dosage on program outcomes remain understudied. This study examines the dosage effects of the Chicago School Readiness Project, a randomized, multifaceted classroom-based intervention conducted in Head Start settings. Using a principal score matching method to address the issue of selection bias, the study finds that high-dosage levels of teacher training and mental health consultant class visits have larger effects on children's school readiness than the effects estimated through intention-to-treat (ITT) analyses.