Early physical health conditions and school readiness skills in a prospective birth cohort of U.S. children.

Rationale: Extant research identifies associations between early physical health disparities and impaired functioning in adulthood, but limited research examines the emergence of these associations in the early years of children's lives.

Objective: This study draws on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; N = 5900) to assess whether a host of early health indicators measured from birth to age five are associated with children's cognitive and behavioral skills at age five.

Results: After adjusting for child and family characteristics, results revealed that children's neonatal risks (prematurity or low birth weight) and reports of poor health and hospitalizations were associated with lower cognitive skills, and neonatal risks and poor health predicted lower behavioral functioning at age five.

Parental endorsement of spanking and children's internalizing and externalizing problems in African American and Hispanic families.

This study assessed prospective, bidirectional associations between maternal endorsement of spanking and children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in low-income urban African American and Hispanic (N = 592) families drawn from the Three City Study. Children in sample families were followed from early childhood through middle childhood with 3 sets of interviews and assessments at ages 3, 4, and 9 years. Cross-lagged path analyses tested longitudinal bidirectional associations between parental endorsement of spanking and children's internalizing and externalizing problems, with multigroup comparisons employed to test group differences between race/ethnic groups.

Assessing psychological symptoms in recent immigrant adolescents.

Immigrant youth are often exposed to numerous psychosocial stressors, placing them at risk for psychological distress. Little research assesses psychopathology in this population during early stages of acculturation. This study compared student and teacher reports of psychological symptoms in a diverse sample of recently immigrated youth.