promoting the emotional well-being of children and families...greater risk of dropping out and...

Promoting the Emotional Well-Beingof Children and FamiliesPolicy Paper No. 3

Ready to Enter: What Research TellsPolicymakers About Strategies to PromoteSocial and Emotional School ReadinessAmong Three- and Four-Year-Old Children

C. Cybele Raver • Jane Knitze

July 2002

2 Ready to Enter National Center for Children in Poverty

Ready to Enter: What Research Tells Policymakers About Strategies to PromoteSocial and Emotional School Readiness Among Three- and Four-Year-Olds

Copyright © 2002 by the National Center for Children in Poverty

The Authors

C. Cybele Raver, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Irving B. Harris Graduate Schoolof Public Policy Studies and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Human Potential andPublic Policy, University of Chicago. In 1999–2001, Dr. Raver was a visiting research fel-low at NCCP where she began this research synthesis.

Jane Knitzer, Ed.D., is deputy director of the National Center for Children in Poverty.She also directs its research on vulnerable families experiencing multiple stresses and onchildren’s mental health.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Marguerite Casey Foundation (for-merly the Casey Family Programs) for making this policy paper as well as others in theseries possible. Their grasp of the importance of promoting understanding about the rolethat social and emotional development has on school readiness and their commitmentthrough the support of NCCP’s work in this area, as well as their funding for the nationalStarting Early Smart initiative, sets the stage for new research, policy, and action to pro-mote the emotional well-being of young children and their families. Support for this re-search also came from a Faculty Scholars Award to Dr. Raver from the William T. GrantFoundation.

The authors are also grateful to the researchers who talked with us informally and whoshared early as well as published findings, and especially to those who reviewed previousdrafts of the document: David H. Arnold, Steven Forness, Herbert Ginsburg, CarolynWebster-Stratton, and Hirokazu Yoshikawa. An additional, related review written byDr. Raver will be published in Social Policy Report in 2002, issued by the Society for Re-search in Child Development. Finally, we want to thank Gina Rhodes, who copyedited themanuscript and the NCCP production team, especially Carole Oshinsky, Kate Szumanski,and Telly Valdellon.

National Center for Children in Poverty Ready to Enter 3

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Executive Summary

A recent and compelling study entitled Neurons toNeighborhoods, conducted by the Board on Children,Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine, callsattention to the importance of early emotional devel-opment in young children. Based on a careful reviewof neuroscience and developmental science, it high-lights compelling evidence that a child’s earliest expe-riences and relationships set the stage for how a childmanages feelings and impulses, and relates to others.It also highlights emerging and perhaps surprising evi-dence that emotional development and academic learn-ing are far more closely intertwined in the early yearsthan has been previously understood. This policy paperfocuses on what emerging research tells policymakersabout why it is so important to intervene to help youngchildren at risk of poor social, emotional, and behav-ioral development and what kinds of research-basedinterventions seem most effective. It addresses:

� the relationship between early academic learningand emotional development;

� the prevalence of emotional problems in preschool-agedyoung children and young children who are exposedto multiple family and environmental risk factors;

� the role of teachers and child care providers in re-ducing or exacerbating problems; and

� the emerging but still limited research on the effi-cacy of preventive and early interventions explic-itly targeted to address the social, emotional, andbehavioral difficulties of young children, particularlyin the context of early care and education settings.

What Research Tells Us About How Emotionsand Early Academic Learning Are Linked

The Take-Home Research Message

� Young children who act in anti-social ways partici-pate less in classroom activities and are less likely tobe accepted by classmates and teachers. Even in pre-school, teachers provide such children with less in-struction and less positive feedback. These childrenlike school less, learn less, and attend less.

� Young children who show signs of anti-social or ag-gressive behavior are more likely to do poorly onacademic tasks and to be held back in the early years.In later childhood and adolescence, they are atgreater risk of dropping out and engaging in delin-quent acts.

� Across a range of studies, the emotional, social, andbehavioral competence of young children (such ashigher levels of self-control and lower levels of act-ing out) predict their academic performance in firstgrade, over and above their cognitive skills and fam-ily backgrounds.

The Take-Home Policy Message

� Efforts to get young children who are at risk of earlyschool failure on a positive school trajectory beforenegative attitudes and behaviors escalate is likelyto pay off both in the short and long term.

What Research Tells Us About the Prevalenceof Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Problemsin Young Children


� The majority of low-income young children succeedin making the transition to school.

� The prevalence of problematic behaviors in youngchildren is about 10 percent. Studies focused on low-income children in kindergarten suggest a preva-lence rate that is considerably higher—27 percent.Observational data on preschoolers suggest that be-tween 4 and 6 percent have serious emotional andbehavioral disorders, and between 16 and 30 per-cent pose on-going problems to classroom teachers.

� In general, the more chronic the economic, social,and psychological stressors that young children face,the greater the likelihood of poor social, emotional,and cognitive outcomes. For this reason, these stres-sors have been identified as “risks.” Over 32 per-cent of all young children are affected by one riskfactor such as low income, low maternal education,or single-parent status, and 16 percent are in fami-lies with two or more socio-demographic risks.


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� Teachers and child care providers are likely to findthat, while some children are doing very well de-spite exposure to these risks, other children are strug-gling with a range of emotional and behavioral dif-ficulties that make the tasks of teaching andcaregiving very tough. Teachers and child care pro-viders need help in promoting greater social skillsin these children and reducing challenging behav-ior in the classroom both to help individual chil-dren and to facilitate a positive learning climate.Sometimes, the children and the families also needaccess to more specialized help.

What Research Tells Us About the Role ofTeachers and Child Care Providers


� Teachers in preschool classrooms are coping with asubstantial number of young children who strugglewith emotional and behavioral problems that posea risk for early school success.

� How teachers interact with young children affectsthe children’s social and emotional outcomes nega-tively or positively.


� The first line of defense in promoting school readi-ness across all developmental domains (includingsocial, emotional, cognitive, and physical) is to en-sure that all children whose parents request it haveaccess to quality early care and learning experiences,marked by classrooms with warm teachers and a pre-dictable, stimulating atmosphere.

� It is critical to provide early childhood teachers withtraining and access to help in dealing with the num-bers of children experiencing or at risk for emotionaland behavioral problems, even in high-quality set-tings, but especially where quality is problematic.

What Research Tells Us About Classroom-Linked Interventions that Can Help


� Preliminary research findings on the impact of so-cial skills curricula targeted to all preschool chil-dren in a classroom are promising but involve verylimited samples.

� For preschool-aged children at higher risk, researchsupports the use of interventions that target bothparents and caregivers/teachers (and may also in-volve social skills curricula targeted to the children).New research combining behavioral strategies withreading and other more academically oriented in-terventions are also being evaluated.

� On-site mental health consultation is the dominantstrategy emerging across the country. Yet researchevaluating this strategy is limited. However, earlyfindings from one national demonstration effort arepromising, showing consistent cross-site effects ofimproved parenting and better child outcomes.


� The urgent need to help young children succeed inschool and the numbers of young children who areat risk for early school failure linked to emotionaland behavioral difficulties point to the importanceof implementing effective interventions earlierrather than later. Although still limited, emergingpatterns from intervention research can help guidepolicymakers in developing these earlier interven-tion strategies.


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Conclusions and Recommendations

This policy paper makes it clear that although there isstill much more to learn about the effectiveness of pre-school-aged interventions, the scientific evidence ofthe need for early intervention is compelling. Further,the intervention research that does exist is beginningto tell a sufficiently coherent story to enablepolicymakers to respond. Below are recommendationsfor policymakers and researchers to build on the knowl-edge base highlighted here.

Policymakers should:

� Invest in and evaluate interventions that improvethe quality of early childhood classrooms and thatprovide teachers with the resources and training theyneed to maintain emotionally positive andcognitively enriching classrooms.

� Pay special attention to classroom-based strategiesto promote social and emotional competence thatcombine child-focused strategies with strategies tar-geted to parents, teachers, and other caregivers.

� Consider interventions that simultaneously addresscognitive, social, and emotional issues, recognizingthe links between social and emotional developmentand successful academic learning, including earlyliteracy.

� Invest in mental health and child development con-sultants who can help the children, the families, andthe teachers implement evidence-based preventiveand early intervention strategies related to social andemotional competence as well as enhance classroomquality and effective management practices.

� Focus special attention on children and familiesexperiencing cumulative and multiple stressors.

� Invest at the state and community levels in strate-gies to ensure the timely dissemination of “researchto practice” knowledge about how to promote so-cial and emotional resilience in young children.

Researchers should:

� Design research to fill in gaps in the understandingof how quality child care and early educational prac-tices affect the social and emotional developmentof young children.

� Pay more attention to issues of “treatment fidelity”—ask if the intervention was carried out as planned,and how this affects the results.

� Conduct multi-site investigations of promising ap-proaches that now primarily involve relatively smallsamples in one or two sites.

� Conduct research on the cost-benefit ratio andtradeoffs of investing in different types of interven-tions.

� Convene networks of researchers in early childhoodmental health to promote the use of shared mea-sures and methodologies to maximize the learningfrom future research.

This policy paper is intended to serve as a call to ac-tion for researchers and policymakers. The urgency ofthe need, the growing knowledge base, coupled withthe stake society has in addressing the social and emo-tional development of young children in a smart way,compels greater attention to this critical domain of de-velopment in the context of school readiness.

This policy paper makes it clear that althoughthere is still much more to learn about the

effectiveness of preschool-aged interventions,the scientific evidence of the need for early

intervention is compelling.


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Introduction

A recent and compelling study entitled Neurons toNeighborhoods, conducted by the Board on Children,Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine, callsattention to the importance of early emotional devel-opment in young children.1 Based on a careful reviewof neuroscience and developmental research, it high-lights compelling evidence that a child’s earliest expe-riences and relationships set the stage for how a childmanages feelings and impulses, and relates to others. Italso highlights emerging and perhaps surprising evi-dence that emotional development and academic learn-ing are far more closely intertwined in the early yearsthan has been previously understood. What researchtells us is that, for some young children, emotional andbehavioral problems serve as a kind of red flag. With-out help, evidence suggests that these emotional andbehavioral difficulties may stabilize or escalate and nega-tively affect early school performance. In turn, earlyschool performance is predictive of later school out-comes.2 Thus, paying attention to the emotional sta-tus of young children has important implications forpolicy and practice strategies designed to promoteschool readiness.

Elsewhere, the National Center for Children in Pov-erty (NCCP) and others have highlighted emergingpolicy efforts to promote social, emotional, and behav-ioral competence in young children, especially thosemost at risk.3 This issue brief focuses on what emerg-ing research tells policymakers about why it is so im-portant to intervene to help young children at risk ofpoor social, emotional, and behavioral developmentand what kinds of research-based interventions seemmost effective. Because there has been so much recentattention to the importance of preventive and earlyintervention in the infant and toddler years,4 the em-phasis of this report is on the years between ages threeand five. This is when many of the problems becomeunmistakably visible. Also, there has been relativelylittle synthesis of research about this age group forpolicymakers, particularly syntheses that address inter-ventions explicitly designed to address social and emo-tional issues.

What research tells us is that, for some young children,emotional and behavioral problems serve as a kind

of red flag. Without help, evidence suggests that theseemotional and behavioral difficulties may stabilize or

escalate and negatively affect early school performance.

This policy paper is particularly timely. Although thereis widespread agreement that success in the early schoolyears is critical to later school achievement, there iscontroversy about how best to help young children atrisk of early school failure.5 Increasingly, scholars ar-gue that school success is linked not just to cognitivecompetencies, but also to the social and emotional com-petencies that complement more academic learning.6

This document takes this broader perspective. It high-lights research findings about:

� the relationship between early academic learningand emotional development;

� the prevalence of emotional problems in preschool-aged young children and young children who areexposed to multiple family and environmental riskfactors;

� the role of teachers and child care providers in re-ducing or exacerbating problems; and

� the emerging, but still limited research on the effi-cacy of preventive and early interventions explicitlytargeted to address the social, emotional, and be-havioral difficulties of young children, particularlyin the context of early care and education settings.

The policy paper is based primarily on a synthesis ofthe published literature, although it also includespreliminary findings from intervention studies that arestill in progress. The focus is on what can be done inthe context of early care and learning programs. Thebrief does not address issues of screening, diagnosis, ormore specialized clinical treatment strategies for youngchildren.


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SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL, AND BEHAVIORAL SKILLSTHAT PROMOTE SCHOOL READINESS*

Young children are more likely to succeed in the transition to school ifthey can:

� Accurately identify emotions in themselves and others. (Children who can-not do this persistently misinterpret social situations and routinely perceivethe motivations of others as hostile.)

� Relate to teachers and peers in positive ways. (Children who lack what areoften called “prosocial skills” are likely to have few friends and negativerelationships with teachers.)

� Manage feelings of anger, frustration, and distress when faced with emo-tionally charged situations (e.g. another child takes a favorite toy).

� Enjoy academic learning and approach it enthusiastically.

� Work attentively, independently, and cooperatively in a structured class-room environment.

Young children are less likely to succeed in the transition to school if they:

� Engage in frequent fighting, hitting, shouting, or other aggressive behaviors.

� Are unable to control impulsive behavior.

� Are unable to pay attention to tasks or follow directions.

� Engage in oppositional, noncompliant, even defiant behavior.

� Are unable to cooperate with others.

� Constantly seek attention from peers or teachers.

� Ignore peers or teachers.

__________

* Eisenberg, N. & Fabes, R. (1992). Emotion, regulation, and the development of social competence. In M. S.Clark (Ed.). Emotion and social behavior: A review of personality and social psychology. Newbury Park, CA:Sage Publications, pp. 119–150. Frey, K.; Hirschstein, M. K.; & Guzzo, B. A. (2000). Second step: Prevent-ing aggression by promoting social competence. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 8(2), pp.102–113. Stipek, D. J. & Ryan, R. H. (1997). Economically disadvantaged preschoolers: Ready to learn butfurther to go. Developmental Psychology, 33(4), pp. 711–723. Raver, C. C. & Zigler, E. F. (1997). Socialcompetence: An untapped dimension in evaluating Head Start’s success. Early Childhood Research Quarterly,12(4), pp. 363–385.

What Research Tells Us AboutHow Emotions and Early AcademicLearning Are Linked

The Take-Home Messages

The Research Message

� Young children who act in anti-social ways partici-pate less in classroom activities and are less likely tobe accepted by classmates and teachers. Even in pre-school, teachers provide such children with less in-struction and less positive feedback. These childrenlike school less, learn less, and attend less.

� Young children who show signs of anti-social or ag-gressive behavior are more likely to do poorly onacademic tasks and to be held back in the early years.In later childhood and adolescence, they are atgreater risk of dropping out and engaging in delin-quent acts.

� Across a range of studies, the emotional, social, andbehavioral competence of young children—such ashigher levels of self-control and lower levels of act-ing out—predict their academic performance in firstgrade, over and above their cognitive skills and fam-ily backgrounds.

The Policy Message

� Efforts to get young children who are at risk of earlyschool failure on a positive school trajectory beforenegative attitudes and behaviors escalate is likelyto pay off both in the short and long term.

Research Findings

Researchers have examined links between emotionaladjustment and academic success in young childrenprimarily from two perspectives. First, they have iden-tified skills related to social and emotional competence(see box) and related them to the academic perfor-mance of young children with varying levels of suchskills. Second, they have studied children with behav-ioral problems and examined how those problems af-fect academic success. The researchers found that,

across a range of studies, emotional, social and behav-ioral competence (marked by more cooperation andself-control, and less aggressive behavior) in early child-hood predict children’s academic performance as earlyas the first grade. Recent studies find that the socialand emotional adjustment of young children make adifference in predicting their early academic achieve-ment even after varying levels of family resources andcognitive skills have been taken into account.7

Children’s ability to regulate their emotions, impulses,and attention also play a significant role in predictingwhether they will be held back to repeat kindergarten,even after statistically controlling for their memory,language, and motor skills.8


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Researchers are also beginning to document the pro-cesses by which children lacking in emotional skills orshowing behavioral problems lose out in their preschooland early school learning environments. Children whoact in anti-social ways are less likely to be accepted byclassmates and teachers.9 They also participate less inclassrooms and do worse in school than their moreemotionally positive, prosocial counterparts. Becausethey are tough to teach, teachers provide them withless instruction and less positive feedback, even in pre-school.10 New research also shows that teachers are lesslikely to recognize cognitive competencies in youngchildren whose behavior they perceive as negative.11

This causes the children to lose out on the positivereinforcement that they might otherwise receive fromothers. Furthermore, emotionally negative, angry chil-dren lose opportunities to learn from their classmatesas children gather to work together and help each otherin the classroom.12 The end result, not surprisingly, isthat children who are disliked by teachers and class-mates grow to like school less, feel less enthusiasm forlearning, and avoid school more often, showing lowerrates of school attendance.13

For some young children, cognitive difficulties may trig-ger the emergence or escalation of behavioral problemsas well as vice versa.14 Difficulty in reading, for example,may spur children to act out, and children who act outare likely to be less attentive and less likely to receiveinstruction from teachers.15 It should also be noted thatsome research links low social skills with poorer lan-guage development, which is also strongly related tosuccess in school. Thus, in a recent study focused onthree-year-old children in Head Start screened for earlyindicators of behavioral problems and communicationdeficits, children with low social skills were more likelyto have low language scores than were their peers withaverage skills.16 What does this mean for school readi-ness? While social and emotional skills should be animportant focus of early intervention, it is also clearthat there is still much to be learned about the waysthat the language, emotional, and behavioral skills ofyoung children work together to support or hinder theirearly school success.

What Research Tells Us About thePrevalence of Social, Emotional, andBehavioral Problems in Young Children

The Take-Home Messages


� The majority of low-income young children succeedin making the transition to school.

� The prevalence of problematic behaviors in youngchildren is about 10 percent. Studies focused on low-income children in kindergarten suggest a preva-lence rate that is considerably higher—27 percent.Observational data on preschoolers suggest that be-tween 4 and 6 percent have serious emotional andbehavioral disorders, and between 16 and 30 per-cent pose on-going problems to classroom teachers.

� In general, the more chronic the economic, social,and psychological stressors that young children face,the greater the likelihood of poor social, emotional,and cognitive outcomes. For this reason, these stres-sors have been identified as “risks.” Over 32 per-cent of all young children are affected by one riskfactor such as low income, low maternal education,or single-parent status, and 16 percent are in fami-lies with two or more socio-demographic risks.

The Policy Message

� Teachers and child care providers are likely to findthat, while some children are doing very well de-spite exposure to these risks, other children are strug-gling with a range of emotional and behavioral dif-ficulties that make the tasks of teaching andcaregiving very tough. Teachers and child care pro-viders need help in promoting greater social skillsin these children and reducing challenging behav-ior in the classroom both to help individual chil-dren and to facilitate a positive learning climate.Sometimes, the children and the families also needaccess to more specialized help.


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Research Findings

Four million young children enter kindergarten eachyear. Most of these children, regardless of income orrace, bring to the transition to school the kinds of so-cial, emotional, language, and cognitive skills that theyneed.17 But a significant group is at risk for early schoolfailure because they lack the social, emotional, and be-havioral skills needed to succeed in school, sometimesalong with poor language and cognitive skills as well.18

Exactly what percent of children need help—and howintensive the help needed—has critical implicationsfor resource allocation and policy development as wellas practice. Firm estimates of the numbers of young chil-dren who exhibit challenging behaviors and lack so-cial skills are very difficult to come by. The researchfocuses on three questions that are not always clearlyseparated.

� What percentage of young children show signs ofproblematic behavior (typically as determined bycaregivers, parents, or other observers)?

� What percentage of young children show clinicallysignificant levels of impairment?

� What percentage of young children are at risk formore serious emotional and behavioral problems?

Responses to these questions vary depending uponwhether the studies focus only on children showingsigns of serious emotional and behavioral disorder, ononly low-income children, or on all young children.Estimates are also affected by the methods and mea-sures used; whether reports are from the teacher, theparent, or both, and whether they involve clinical ob-servations or formal protocols may all result in varyingestimates. For example, research indicates that teacherreports of behavioral problems vary depending uponwhether the child and the teacher are ethnically simi-lar or different and upon the percentage of minoritychildren in the classroom.19 Identification rates alsovary depending upon the combination of instrumentsused and whether the focus is only on symptoms or onstrengths and adaptive behavior. For example, in onestudy identification rates varied from 1 percent to 28percent depending upon the instruments.20 This sug-gests, and other research has confirmed, that the risk

of racial, cultural, and gender stereotyping and bias isvery real.21 Further, even at their best, prevalence esti-mates only provide a snapshot of children’s successesand struggles at one point in time. With these caveats,below are answers to the prevalence questions, basedon current research.

What percentage of young children show signs ofproblematic behavior?

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS),which involves a nationally representative sample ofover 22,000 children in kindergarten, tells a nationalstory. Based on information from a short list of behav-ioral problems (that do not meet clinical levels of speci-ficity), approximately 10 percent of the children en-rolled in an average kindergarten classroom engage of-ten or very often in arguments or fights, or easily be-come angry. ECLS data also suggest that exposure tomultiple poverty-related risks increases the odds thatchildren will demonstrate more behavioral problemsand less social and emotional competence. 22

Studies focused primarily on economically disadvan-taged children underscore the seriousness of their so-cial and emotional needs. For example, in one recentstudy, Head Start teachers reported that about 40 per-cent of preschoolers exhibit at least one disruptive andunsafe behavior each day, such as kicking, hitting, andthreatening, with 10 percent of their children dailyexhibiting six or more antisocial, aggressive behaviors.23

Another study found that preschoolers were observedto engage in an average of 32 instances of misbehavior(including hitting, grabbing, pushing, verbal aggression,and ignoring teacher requests) within a given 10-minuteinterval of time.24 A survey of child care providers in10 Chicago centers found 32 percent of the children(including toddlers) had behavioral problems.25 A re-view of a series of community-based Head Start preva-lence studies found considerably more variation in prob-lem behavior, ranging from 5 to 33 percent.26

What percentage of young children show clinicallysignificant levels of impairment?

Prevalence estimates of young children with clinicallysignificant levels of impairment vary depending uponthe diagnosis. For example, estimates of clinical levels


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of oppositional and defiant behavior and early onsetconduct disorder in young children range from 2 to 7percent.27 Similarly, estimates of serious emotional dis-orders in young children range from 4 to 10 percent.28

For instance, researchers conducting careful assessmentsof Head Start children have estimated that between 6and 10 percent met the criteria for emotional and be-havioral disabilities.29 Parents of former Head Start chil-dren now in kindergarten reported that 7 percent ofchildren who had been in Head Start were on medica-tion related to behavioral problems.30 But research alsorepeatedly finds that most young children with seriousemotional and behavioral problems are either not iden-tified or misidentified. Head Start programs routinelyidentify under 1 percent of their children as havingemotional and behavioral disabilities, although someof these children are identified as having speech andlanguage disorders.31

What percentage of young children are at risk ofdeveloping more serious emotional and behavioralproblems?

Research in developmental and clinical psychology hasconsistently identified a set of “risk factors” that in-crease the odds that children will struggle with latersocial, emotional, and cognitive difficulties, even as re-search has identified children in this group who areresilient and “beat the odds.” For many who later areidentified as having serious emotional and behavioraldisabilities, there are both anecdotal and research-basedreports that although parents of these children recog-nize problems in the preschool (or earlier) years, thereis a predictable multi-year lag between that recogni-tion and getting the children and families linked toappropriate services, thus losing the potential efficacyof intensive early intervention for these young chil-dren.32 Yet, from a policy perspective, efforts to trans-late knowledge about the longer-term consequences ofmultiple risk factors in young children into targetedprevention and early intervention services have beenlimited.

The research base about early risk factors predictingpoor developmental outcomes, including social andemotional outcomes, is solid and compelling. Familieswith low income, in single-parent households, with lowlevels of education, or low proficiency in English gen-

For many who later are identified as having seriousemotional and behavioral disabilities, there areboth anecdotal and research-based reports that

although parents of these children recognize problemsin the preschool (or earlier) years, there is a predictablemulti-year lag between that recognition and getting the

children and families linked to appropriate services,thus losing the potential efficacy of intensive early

intervention for these young children.

erally have to cope with greater hardship and more lim-ited access to fewer resources, and their children’s oddsof doing well are correspondingly, lower. Poverty sta-tus, single-parent status, maternal educational levels,and English proficiency are therefore all considered keydemographic risk factors. Similarly, parental psychoso-cial risks such as depression, substance abuse, involve-ment in domestic violence, homelessness, a history ofpsychiatric illness, parental abuse as a child, and expo-sure to repeated major life stresses all increase a child’srisk of later emotional and behavioral difficulty. Theodds of negative outcomes are further increased by ad-ditional risks such as disability, chronic illness, andwitnessing violence that obviously overlap with fami-lies’ demographic risks and income. It is important tonote that a great many families facing these risks areable to buffer their children from negative outcomes.33

But it is equally important that educators andpolicymakers understand the ways that multiply disad-vantaged children face greater odds of early school dif-ficulty. When these additional hurdles go unacknowl-edged and unaddressed, the risks of early school failureare increased.

Which risk factors or combinations of risk factors mat-ter most in predicting children’s emotional and behav-ioral competence versus difficulty? A compelling bodyof research suggests that educators cannot rely on anyone marker of disadvantage but rather need as com-plete a picture as possible of families’ and children’slives outside the classroom. Specifically, the more riskfactors a child is exposed to, the greater the likelihood


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of poor outcomes in general, and behavioral and socialproblems in particular.34 Further, research has foundthat it is not the presence of any one particular riskfactor but rather the combination of multiple risks thatbest predicts the emotional and academic status of chil-dren over time.35

Less clear, however, is the number of children exposedto multiple risk factors. There is no single source fordeveloping estimates of the numbers of young childrenwho are in families facing these cumulative stressors.The ECLS suggests that 32 percent of kindergartnersface one demographic risk (including low levels ofmaternal educational attainment, single parenthood,welfare assistance, or residence in a non-English speak-ing home); 16 percent face two or more risks.36 Theserisks significantly increase the odds that the health andwell-being of young children will be compromised. Asmaller study, involving 9,000 first-graders in one largeurban school district, found that the experiences ofpoverty, maltreatment, out-of-home placement, andbeing parented by a single parent each substantiallyincreased first-graders’ chances (by 1.5 to 2 times) ofdemonstrating behavioral difficulty during the schoolyear.37 The Family and Child Experiences Survey(FACES), a nationally representative sample of HeadStart programs, reported that 17 percent of Head Start’sthree-to-five-year-old children have witnessed a vio-lent crime or domestic violence, and 3 percent werethemselves victims.38 Exposure to violence and its re-lated trauma can have enormously negative conse-quences for young children if not addressed.39

High rates of parental exposure to serious life stressorshave been repeatedly documented in Head Start. In aseries of intervention studies in Washington state, justunder half of the families participating in the controland treatment groups reported at least four of 14 riskfactors (e.g., low levels of educational attainment, pa-rental criminal and substance abuse history, high lev-els of marital discord and family violence). Some 42percent of the parents reported moderate to severe lev-els of depressive symptoms, 20 percent of families re-ported recent involvement with child protective ser-vices, and 16 percent have lived at some point in ahomeless shelter with their child.40 Similar findingshave emerged from other early childhood interventionprograms such as Early Head Start.41 A national study

of Head Start families’ exposure to multiple risks sug-gests that, from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, therehas been a substantial increase in the levels of disad-vantage to which Head Start families were exposed.For example, the proportion of Head Start families fac-ing multiple demographic risks has increased by 22 per-cent and the proportion of Head Start-enrolled chil-dren living in poor neighborhoods increased by 35 per-cent, over that 10-year period.42

Similarly, among a sample of mothers transitioning fromwelfare to work, a recent study found that 37 percentexperienced two or three barriers to their own employ-ment that are also known to place young children atrisk for poor outcomes, while 27 percent experiencedfour or more barriers.43 Two times as many of thesewomen experienced a major depressive disorder as inthe general population, while five times as many expe-rienced domestic violence. (See box below.) Maternaldepression is a particularly potent risk factor for youngchildren.44

PREVALENCE OF PARENTAL RISK FACTORS LIKELYTO NEGATIVELY IMPACT YOUNG CHILDREN’S

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

In a sample of over 700 women transitioning from welfare to work:*

� 32 percent had less than a high school education (compared with 13 per-cent nationally).

� 25 percent had a major depressive disorder (compared with 13 percentnationally).

� 22 percent had a child with a significant health problem (compared with 16percent nationally).

� 20 percent had their own significant health problem.

� 15 percent had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (the same rateas national estimates).

� 15 percent had experienced an anxiety disorder (compared with 4.3 per-cent nationally).

� 15 percent had experienced domestic violence (compared with 3 percentnationally).

� 15 percent had low work experience.

� 6 percent experienced alcohol or drug dependence (the same rate as na-tional estimates).

__________

* Danziger, S.; Corcoran, M.; Danziger, S.; Heflin, C.; Kalil, A.; Levine, J.; Rosen, D.; Seefldlt, K.; Siefert, K.; &Toman, R. O. (2000). Barriers to the employment of welfare recipients. In R. Cherry & W. M. Rogers (Eds.).Prosperity for all: The economic boom and African Americans. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.


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What Research Tells Us About the Roleof Teachers and Child Care Providers

Take-Home Messages


� Teachers in preschool classrooms are coping with asubstantial number of young children who strugglewith emotional and behavioral problems that posea risk for early school success.

� How teachers interact with young children affectsthe children’s social and emotional outcomes nega-tively or positively.

The Policy Message

� The first line of defense in promoting school readi-ness across all developmental domains (includingsocial, emotional, cognitive, and physical) shouldbe to ensure that every child whose parents requestit has access to a quality early care and learning ex-perience, marked by classrooms with warm teachersand a predictable, stimulating atmosphere.

� It is critical to provide early childhood teachers withtraining and access to help in dealing with the num-bers of children experiencing or at risk for emotionaland behavioral problems, even in high-quality set-tings, but especially where quality is problematic.

Research Findings

It is useful to consider the role of teachers and childcare providers from two perspectives: (1) what they arecoping with in their classrooms, and (2) what role theycan play in ameliorating or exacerbating the challengesthat children may face. With respect to what teachersof young children are coping with, the prevalence andrisk data send a very clear message. Teachers in pre-school classrooms are dealing with a substantial num-ber of young children who lack important social andemotional competencies and whose behavior is alreadyproblematic or who are at risk for developing problem-atic behaviors. Consider, for example, what the preva-lence estimates highlighted above mean for Head Start

classrooms. In fiscal year 2000, Head Start served over850,000 preschool-aged children in 46,225 class-rooms.45 Conservatively, if 10 percent of those chil-dren demonstrate elevated levels of behavioral prob-lems, this would translate to 85,000 children. Withapproximately 18 children in each classroom, this wouldmean that roughly one to two children per classroomare demonstrating serious, persistent aggressive andoppositional behavior. If rates of problematic behavioramong preschool-aged children are as high as 30 per-cent, then a teacher must manage the aggressive, dis-ruptive, and withdrawn behaviors of five or six of thestudents in any given classroom. If 25 to 49 percent ofthe students in a given class have families who are strug-gling with more than four psychosocial risk factors, thenbetween four and nine children may be coming to theirclassrooms on any given day wrestling with the impactof these stressors.

In fact, preschool teachers and child care providers re-port that disruptive behavior is the single greatest chal-lenge that they face and that there seem to be increas-ing numbers of disruptive and aggressive children intheir classes each year.46 At the same time, early childcare providers and teachers are under increasing pres-sure to ensure that children, in accordance with a na-tional goal, “enter school ready to learn.”47 This has tomake the job of teaching and learning particularly hard.These statistics have clear implications for the kinds ofsupport the teachers need as well as the importance ofintervention strategies targeted directly to the childrenand, sometimes, their families.

A significant body of research also highlights the im-portant role that teachers play in the development ofsocial and emotional skills in young children. Recentlongitudinal, nonrandomized studies of aspects of child

Preschool teachers and child care providers reportthat disruptive behavior is the single greatest challenge

that they face and that there seem to be increasingnumbers of disruptive and aggressive children

in their classes each year.


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care quality that can be regulated, such as teacher train-ing, teacher-to-child ratio, and compliance with safetycodes, have clearly demonstrated that low-income chil-dren in high-quality child care settings are significantlybetter off, cognitively and emotionally, than similarchildren in poor-quality settings.48 Children attendingpreschool classrooms that are marked by close teacher-student relationships, low levels of problem behaviors,and opportunities for positive social interaction, aremore socially competent and fare better academicallyduring the first two years of elementary schooling, thando children from more disruptive classrooms.49 Thequality of child care matters. Higher quality child care(and more center-based experience) predicted betterlinguistic, cognitive, and preacademic outcomes, andfewer behavioral problems.50 Research also suggests thatteachers can unwittingly perpetuate high levels of mis-behavior in their classrooms by either ignoring prob-lematic behaviors or reacting harshly.51 Even more trou-bling, a 1994 national survey found that teachers serv-ing predominately low-income children used signifi-cantly more harsh, detached, and insensitive behav-iors with children than teachers serving middle- and-upper-income children.52

What Research Tells Us AboutClassroom-Linked InterventionsThat Can Help

Take-Home Messages


� Preliminary research findings on the impact of so-cial skills curricula targeted to all preschool chil-dren in a classroom are promising but involve verylimited samples.

� For preschool-aged children at higher risk, researchsupports the use of interventions that target bothparents and caregivers/teachers (and may also in-volve social skills curricula targeted to the children).New research combining behavioral strategies withreading and other more academically oriented in-terventions are also being evaluated.

� On-site mental health consultation is the dominantstrategy emerging across the country. Yet researchevaluating this strategy is limited. However, earlyfindings from one national demonstration effort arepromising, showing consistent cross-site effects ofimproved parenting and better child outcomes.

The Policy Message

� The urgent need to help young children succeed inschool and the numbers of young children who areat risk for early school failure linked to emotionaland behavioral difficulties point to the importanceof implementing effective interventions earlierrather than later, especially in early care and learn-ing settings. Although still limited, emerging pat-terns from intervention research can help guidepolicymakers in developing these earlier interven-tion strategies.

Low-income children in high-quality child care settingsare significantly better off, cognitively and emotionally,

than similar children in poor-quality settings.


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Research Findings on Classroom-LinkedInterventions

Three types of interventions can be implemented foryoung children from ages three to five:

� universal, prevention-oriented interventions aimedat child care and preschool classrooms as a whole;

� early interventions designed to help children expe-riencing greater risks for poor emotional and behav-ioral development; and

� mental health services and related support servicesbeyond the classroom to help the most troubledyoung children and their families.

This issue brief explores what is known from empiricalresearch addressing the first two types of interventions.It does not address the many emerging preventive andearly intervention initiatives that, while not supportedby the more rigorous research reported here, may alsohave important lessons for the field.53

Prevention-Oriented Strategies to StrengthenEmotional and Behavioral Competencies

Designing Special Social Skills Curricula

Recently, researchers have designed and tested devel-opmentally appropriate “curricula” to promote youngchildren’s decision-making, prosocial behavior, impulsecontrol, and emotional-problem solving. The roots ofthese efforts lie in strategies tested with older children,largely focused around the implementation of “socialskills curricula” where teachers can devote relativelysmall amounts of class time to instruct children on howto identify and label feelings, how to appropriately com-municate with others about emotions (e.g., to use wordsinstead of fists), and how to resolve disputes withpeers.54

Typically, these social skills curricula weave togetheractivities to promote social skills building as well ascognitive competence. For example, in one approach,researchers adapted an existing primary preventionapproach to a younger population using songs and sto-ries about following directions, sharing, and problem-solving. 55 In another program, the aims of the curricu-

lum were to teach young children self-regulation, helpthem be more aware of and able to communicate abouttheir emotions, promote positive peer relations, andhelp teachers improve the classroom environment.56

These interventions were carried out with control andtreatment groups, so that any effects of the programcould be carefully distinguished from behavioralchanges that might occur as a result of the age or amountof time the child spent in Head Start classrooms. Pre-liminary results from these programs suggest improve-ments in children’s adaptive behavior, social interac-tions, and attentional behavior. Children who were atrisk of developing emotional or behavioral disorderseither significantly improved or maintained their pre-vious levels of functioning. In the most fully researchedsocial skills curricula, the authors combined proactivetraining involving classroom management with a spe-cially designed social skills curricula, viewing effectiveclassroom management as the necessary condition forthe successful implementation of a social skills cur-ricula.57

The potential gain of social skills programs is that theycan be offered “universally” to all children in a givenclassroom and at a relatively low cost, and that the cli-mate of the classroom may become significantly lesschaotic and more conducive to learning.58 In addition,some experts suggest that children with behavior prob-lems can benefit by watching more socially competentchildren use the skills systematically.59 For older chil-dren, however, research suggests that such approaches,in isolation, have only a modest impact on reducingchildren’s behavioral problems.60

The potential gain of social skills programs is thatthey can be offered “universally” to all children in a

given classroom and at a relatively low cost, and thatthe climate of the classroom may become significantly

less chaotic and more conducive to learning.


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Research Findings on Interventions Designedto Help Children Experiencing Greater Risksfor Poor Emotional and BehavioralDevelopment

Over the years, there have been many research anddemonstration efforts designed to improve outcomesfor low-income young children and families.61 The re-sults of these are promising, but in general, they shedlittle specific light on how to promote social compe-tence and reduce disruptive behavior, especially in thecontext of classroom settings. More recently, research-ers have begun to address this challenge, testing inter-ventions explicitly designed to promote social compe-tence and reduce disruptive behavior with groups ofyoung children.

Much of this emerging research on the behavioral andemotional problems of young children shares severalcharacteristics. First, the designs of these interventionsare premised on the assumption that the children’scaregivers as well as the environments that shapechildren’s problematic behavior, such as homes andschools, must be as much the focus of intervention ef-forts as are the children.62 This differentiates early child-hood mental health interventions from more traditionalmental health approaches, making it more akin to apublic health model, rather than a clinical or medicalmodel.63 Second, the designs typically combine sev-eral strategies; emotional and social skills learning maybe paired with efforts to engage young children in moreacademic learning; parent-focused strategies may bejoined with teacher-focused strategies; preventive in-terventions may be linked with more intensive strat-egies targeted to specific children already showing moreproblematic behaviors.

Combining Child-Focused Academic andSocial and Emotional Strategies

Building on the evidence that academic learning andemotional adjustment are intertwined (e.g., behavioralproblems interfere with the ability to read, and the in-ability to read triggers more behavioral problems) anumber of researchers are designing programs to fosterreading skills and to curtail children’s disruptive act-ing-out behaviors, working both with parents andteachers. For example, a number of interventions are

in progress where children are assigned to reading in-terventions as well as behavioral interventions.64 Whileoutcome data are not yet available on the effectivenessof these interventions, preliminary data suggest thatmost teachers and parents found participation in theintervention to be positive.

Parent-Training Strategies

Because past research suggests that many of the emo-tional problems visible in young children appear to beprofoundly affected by parenting practices, a numberof programs aim to curtail use of inconsistent and harshparenting as an indirect means of improving children’semotional and behavioral adjustment.65 A recent andespecially thoughtful review of parenting programs (tar-geted to higher-risk families) concludes that behavioralparent training either for individual parents or groupsof parents of young children (from age two) has hadgenerally positive results in strengthening parentingpractices and reducing problems in child behaviorswithin the home.66 These findings, however, have notalways generalized to child care settings.

The most extensively researched effort to achieve posi-tive outcomes in the context of early care and learningsettings is a program entitled The Incredible Years: Par-ent, Teacher, and Child Training Series. Drawing onan empirically validated clinical intervention with par-ents of preschoolers referred to a mental health clinicbecause of disruptive behavior, Carolyn Webster-Stratton and her colleagues have developed and con-

A recent review of parenting programs(targeted to higher-risk families) concludes

that behavioral parent training either for individualparents or groups of parents of young children

has had generally positive results in strengtheningparenting practices and reducing problems

in child behaviors within the home.These findings, however, have not always

generalized to child care settings.


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ducted sustained research on an intervention that fo-cuses on parents. 67 Targeted to both preschool-agedchildren and children in the early school years, the pro-gram uses videotaped vignettes to foster group discus-sion among parents about issues related to disciplineand positive, supportive child-directed play, and for theolder children, supporting school learning at home. Todate, there have been six randomized trials of the pro-gram by the researchers, as well as replications by oth-ers. The program was found to be effective in strength-ening the parenting skills of over 200 Head Start moth-ers, low-income African-American mothers of infantsand toddlers in a child care center, and Hispanic fami-lies.68 An additional analysis also found that motherswith special risk factors, such as high levels of depres-sion, reported physical and sexual abuse as children,and high levels of anger were able to engage in theparenting program and to benefit from it at levels com-parable to other parents.69

There is also some promising research designed par-ticularly to help high-risk parents. Focusing on a low-income population, using a family-strengths-based ap-proach, John Fantuzzo and his colleagues have designedan intervention that aims to increase the enrollmentof maltreating families into Head Start programs so thatparents and children can benefit from their compre-hensive services.70 The intervention aims to decreasefamilies’ social isolation, reduce high psychosocial stress,strengthen parenting skills, and help withdrawn, mal-treated children build their social skills using parentinggroups and mentoring relationships between maltreat-ing parents and resilient community members (oftenother parents). It also has a child-focused social skillscomponent. This intervention is impressive in its ex-plicit focus on the multiple ecological risk factors af-fecting families and in the positive support the pro-gram gives to very high-risk parents, using more resil-ient parents from the same community as mentors.However, no research results have yet been published.

Combining Parent and Teacher Training Strategies

Initially, the Incredible Years program highlightedabove focused only on parent training. Researchersadded the teacher component after they found thatwhile a universal prevention program offered to all HeadStart parents resulted in improvements in parenting

interactions with children, especially for children withbehaviors in the clinical range, there were no visiblechanges in the classroom. One recent randomizedevaluation of both parent- and teacher-focused com-ponents involved 272 Head Start mothers and 61 HeadStart teachers from 14 centers. All Head Start teachersreceived six days of training spread over a six-monthperiod to strengthen their skills in promoting and en-couraging positive social and emotional behaviors inthe classroom while curtailing problematic and disrup-tive behavior. Led by family service workers who com-pleted a three-day leadership program, the parent com-ponent strengthened parental ability to manage nega-tive behaviors in their children and increased parentalinvolvement in the children’s preschool. Those in thecontrol group participated in the regular center-basedHead Start program. Pre-and post-assessments and one-and two-year follow-ups included reports by parents andteachers as well as independent observations. Resultswere positive. (See box.) Especially important is thefact that the intervention seems effective for a multi-ethnic group.71 Similarly positive (though more prelimi-nary) results have been found with other preschool in-terventions that include both teachers and parents.72

Thus, overall, recent research on collaborative ap-proaches to parent- and teacher-training suggests thatthis type of approach can lead to substantial improve-

RESEARCH FINDINGS FROM THE INCREDIBLE YEARS*

At the end of the intervention:

� intervention mothers had significantly lower scores on negative parentingand significantly higher scores on positive parenting;

� parent-teacher bonding was significantly higher for intervention motherswho attended six or more intervention sessions than for control mothers;

� intervention children, especially the most high-risk, showed significant de-creases in conduct problems than the control children;

� intervention children were more engaged in on-task behaviors in the class-room than control children;

� teachers in the intervention group had significantly higher scores on theaffirmative classroom management indicators; and,

� the classroom climate in the intervention classrooms was more positiveoverall.

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* Webster-Stratton, C.; Reid, M. J.; & Hammond, M. (2001). Preventing conduct problems, promoting socialcompetence: A parent and teacher training partnership in Head Start. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology,30(3), pp. 283–302.


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ments in Head Start teachers’ positive interactions withtheir students and with parents.

What can be concluded from this growing number ofintervention studies? These studies represent very goodnews for educators and policymakers concerned withthe social, emotional, and academic success of youngchildren. They highlight the positive results of class-room-based programs when they are combined withteacher training and parent components. Larger stud-ies now being carried out with Head Start, kindergar-ten, and first-grade children, parents, and teachers mayoffer additional insight into the next steps thatpolicymakers can take to support school readiness.

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

Implementing the interventions highlighted abovegenerally involve a clear protocol, specialized training,and varying amounts of research. But there is also newresearch on a more flexible approach, on-site earlychildhood mental health consultation. Generallycrafted as a partnership between an early care and learn-ing setting (e.g., Head Start, Early Head Start, childcare) and a mental health professional, agency, or some-times set of agencies, on-site mental health consulta-tion in early childhood settings appears to be growingvery rapidly.73 What is particularly appealing about anon-site consultation model is that the consultant canand often does develop a continuum of interventions,from classroom-focused interventions serving all chil-dren, to more intensive classroom and sometimes home-linked interventions for more high-risk young children,to referrals for those who need more specialized ser-vices. (See box.) The model can be effective for in-fants and toddlers as well as preschoolers. Further, con-sultation approaches emphasizing linkages betweenparents and teachers encourage both sets of adults in achild’s life to develop a sense of shared responsibilityand support in addressing the child’s emotional and be-havioral difficulties.74

Assessing the impacts of these flexible mental healthstrategies however, poses research challenges. For ex-ample, preliminary findings from a study of a networkof consultants from San Francisco suggests that the ef-fectiveness depends upon complex factors such as thefit of the consultant’s approach with the philosophy of

the center.75 One important national initiative assess-ing the impact of integrating behavioral health servicesinto child care, Head Start, and primary health set-tings (each of which uses its own consultation ap-proach) involves a systematic multi-site demonstrationand evaluation. Known as Starting Early Starting Smart(SESS), there are now projects in 14 states and theDistrict of Columbia. The research involved nine ofthe initial sites—four in primary health care settings,five in early childhood settings. The overall aim of SESSis to see if efforts to integrate behavioral health ser-vices in these settings promote four broad goals:

� Increase access to and utilization of family/parenting,mental health, and substance abuse services.

� Promote collaboration at the community level toincrease services integration.

� Improve parenting skills and family well-being.

� Strengthen child development.

SESS targets children from birth to age seven, andmarks a public/private partnership that involves fund-ing and collaboration between the federal SubstanceAbuse Mental Health Services Administration and theCasey Family Programs. While site–specific strategiesvary, all share a set of common principles, with an es-pecially strong commitment to implementing astrengths-based, family participatory process to achievethe SESS goals.76 Preliminary findings from the researchare promising. (See box.) Individual sites also report

EXAMPLES OF WHAT EARLY CHILDHOODMENTAL HEALTH CONSULTANTS DO*

� Training and problem-solving with teachers.

� Screening and referrals for young children with more serious problems.

� Developing and implementing with teachers classroom-based interventionsfor specific children.

� Supervising family support workers.

� Providing crisis intervention in the face of community or family disasters.

� Running parent groups and working with families individually.

__________

* Yoshikawa, H. & Knitzer, J. (1997). Lessons from the field: Head Start mental health strategies to meetchanging needs. New York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia Unviersity Mailman Schoolof Public Health.


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policy-relevant findings: for example, families receiv-ing the intervention are more likely to use licensed childcare, to be working full time, and to be better able toaccess basic supports (e.g., food and housing). Prelimi-nary findings from one site suggest more stability inhousing among families receiving the intervention.

Other Strategies

The strategies highlighted above reflect and are con-strained by interventions that have been examinedthrough a research lens. But developmental researchalso suggests that other strategies might have signifi-cant pay-off. For example, Hirokazu Yoshikawa has ar-gued that research supports four pathways, three ofwhich have been highlighted here: (1) providing in-tensive family support and high quality early educa-tion; (2) developing behavioral interventions to ad-dress existing behavior problems in young children; and(3) providing intensive, on-site consultation and staff

PRELIMINARY FINDINGS FROMSTARTING EARLY STARTING SMART*

Improved Utilization of Services to Reduce Parenting Barriers

� Significantly more of the SESS families accessed or continued to use parentingservices after the initiative began and one-third of the families continued inmental health treatment services.

� SESS participants demonstrated a decline in drug use compared to the com-parison group.

Improved Parenting Strategies

� SESS families receiving the intervention report decreased verbal aggressionin the home while it increased for those not receiving the intervention.

� SESS families demonstrated improved measures of positive parenting re-garding appropriate discipline and positive reinforcement, while comparisonfamilies experienced declines.

� Interactions between infants and their mothers were significantly more posi-tive than comparison mothers and infants.

Improved Child Outcomes Linked to School Readiness

� The language ability of SESS-enrolled children improved significantly morethan children not enrolled in SESS.

� Teachers report that SESS-enrolled children showed reductions in external andinternal behavior problems, while problems increased for comparison children.

__________

* Casey Family Programs and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001). Starting EarlyStarting Smart: Summary of early findings. Washington, DC: Casey Family Programs and the U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

support to address existing mental health problems.77

The fourth strategy is far less evident; it is an indirectbut potentially powerful strategy: ensuring economicsecurity among low-income families.78 This is a strat-egy that certainly could be embedded in the other threefor example, by ensuring that consultants or staff work-ing directly with families ensure that they access allthe basic benefits for which they are eligible, such asthe federal Earned Income Tax Credit, or Medicaid andChild Care Subsidies.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This policy paper makes it clear that although there isstill much more to learn about the effectiveness of pre-school-aged interventions, the scientific evidence ofthe need for early intervention is compelling. Further,the intervention research that does exist is beginningto tell a sufficiently coherent story to enablepolicymakers to respond. Below are recommendationsfor policymakers and researchers to build on the knowl-edge base highlighted here.

Policymakers should:

� Invest in and evaluate interventions that improvethe quality of early childhood classrooms and thatprovide teachers with the resources and training theyneed to maintain emotionally positive andcognitively enriching classrooms.

� Pay special attention to classroom-based strategiesto promote social and emotional competence thatcombine child-focused strategies with strategies tar-geted to parents, teachers, and other caregivers.

� Consider interventions that simultaneously addresscognitive, social, and emotional issues, recognizingthe links between social and emotional developmentand successful academic learning, including earlyliteracy.

� Invest in mental health and child development con-sultants who can help the children, the families, andthe teachers implement evidence-based preventiveand early intervention strategies related to social and


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emotional competence as well as enhance classroomquality and effective management practices.

� Focus special attention on children and familiesexperiencing cumulative and multiple stressors.

� Invest at the state and community levels in strate-gies to ensure the timely dissemination of “researchto practice” knowledge about how to promote so-cial and emotional resilience in young children.

Researchers should:

� Design research to fill in gaps in the understandingof how quality child care and early educational prac-tices affect the social and emotional developmentof young children.

� Pay more attention to issues of “treatment fidelity”—ask if the intervention was carried out as planned,and how this affects the results.

� Conduct multi-site investigations of promising ap-proaches that now primarily involve relatively smallsamples in one or two sites.

� Conduct research on the cost-benefit ratio andtradeoffs of investing in different types of interven-tions.

� Convene networks of researchers in early childhoodmental health to promote the use of shared mea-sures and methodologies to maximize the learningfrom future research.

This policy paper is intended to serve as a call to ac-tion for researchers and policymakers. The urgency ofthe need, the growing knowledge base, coupled withthe stake society has in addressing the social and emo-tional development of young children in a smart way,compels greater attention to this critical domain of childdevelopment in the context of school readiness.


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Endnotes

1. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, Boardon Children, Youth, and Families, Commission on Behavioraland Social Sciences and Education; Shonkoff, J. P. & Phillips,D. (Eds.). (2001). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science ofearly childhood development. Washington, DC: National Acad-emy Press.

2. Alexander, K. & Entwistle, D. (1998). Achievement in thefirst two years of school: Patterns and processes (Monographs ofthe Society for Research in Child Development, 53(2), SerialNo. 218). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Entwistle, D. & Alexander, K. (1999). Early schooling and strati-fication. In R. C. Pianta & M. J. Cox, (Eds.). The transition tokindergarten. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes, pp. 13–38.

Speece, D. & Cooper, D. (1990). Ontogeny of school failure:Classification of first grade children. American Educational Re-search Journal, 27, pp. 119–140.

3. See, for example, Kaufmann, R. & Perry, D. (2001). Promot-ing social-emotional development in young children: Promis-ing approaches at the national, state, and community levels.St. Louis, MO: Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation. Paperpresented at the Kaufmann Early Education Exchange in So-cial and Emotional Development and School Readiness, No-vember 12, 2001.

Knitzer, J. (2000). Using mental health strategies to move the earlychildhood agenda and promote school readiness (Promoting theEmotional Well-being of Children and Families Policy Reprint).New York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty, Co-lumbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

4. Children’s social and emotional problems emerge as early asthe second year of life. See Briggs-McGowan, M. J.; Carter, A.S.; Suban, E. M.; & Horwitz, S. M. (2001). Prevalence of so-cial-emotional and behavioral problems in a community sampleof 1- and 2-year-old children. Journal of the American Academyof Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, pp. 811–819.

Risk factors are visible even earlier. See Thompson, R. (2001).The roots of social and emotional development. St. Louis, MO:Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation. Paper presented at theKaufmann Early Education Exchange in Social and EmotionalDevelopment and School Readiness, November 12, 2001.

For more general discussion about the earliest years see endnote1 and Larner, M. B. (Ed.). (2001). Caring for infants and tod-dlers. The Future of Children, 11(1), pp. 7–157.

5. See endnote 1 and Peth-Pierce, R. (2001). A good begin-ning: Sending America’s children to school with the social andemotional competence they need to succeed. Monograph basedon two papers commissioned by the Child Mental Health Foun-dations and Agencies Network (FAN). Chapel Hill, NC: Uni-versity of North Carolina.

6. Jimerson, S.; Egeland, B.; & Teo, A. (1999). A longitudinalstudy of achievement trajectories: Factors associated withchange. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(1), pp. 116–126.

Masten, A. S. & Coatsworth, J. D. (1998). The development ofcompetence in favorable and unfavorable environments: Les-sons from research on successful children. American Psycholo-gi

promoting the emotional well-being of children and families...greater risk of dropping out and...

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