Early student (dis)engagement: Contributions of household chaos, parenting, and self-regulatory skills.

Previous studies suggest that the roots of school dropout (a) can be established early in life, (b) are likely to involve multilevel factors (home, child, classroom) operating prior to and during the elementary school years, and (c) can be identified by 3rd grade. The decision to drop out of school is thus a dynamic developmental process that can begin with disengagement in elementary school. Yet few studies have examined the multilevel factors that might contribute to children's early disengagement from school.

Bidirectional Linkages between Emotion Recognition and Problem Behaviors in Elementary School Children.

Cross-sectional studies support negative associations between children's skills in recognizing emotional expressions and their problem behaviors. Few studies have examined these associations over time, however, precluding our understanding of the direction of effects. Emotion recognition difficulties may contribute to the development of problem behaviors; additionally, problem behaviors may constrain the development of emotion recognition skill.

Emotion Recognition Deficits among Children with Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Behaviors.

Deficits in emotion recognition have been associated with psychopathic and callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors among adults, adolescents, and children. However, few previous studies have examined such associations exclusively during early and middle childhood, or demographic differences in emotion recognition that may result from early emotion socialization experiences. The current study used a large, population-stratified, randomly-selected sample of 2 grade children living in areas of high rural poverty to examine group differences in emotion recognition among children showing no conduct problems or CU behaviors (typical), conduct problems without CU behaviors (CP-only), and both CP and CU behaviors (CP+CU).

A Three-factor Structure of Emotion Understanding in Third-grade Children.

Theoretical conceptualizations of emotion understanding generally imply a two-factor structure comprised of recognition of emotional expressions and understanding emotion-eliciting situations. We tested this structure in middle childhood and then explored the unique predictive value of various facets of emotion understanding in explaining children's socioemotional competence. Participants were 201 third-grade children and their mothers.