![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
As part of a larger longitudinal project on the assessment of preschoolers’ social-emotional development, children's social information processing (SIP) responses to unambiguous hypothetical situations of peer provocation were assessed for 239 preschoolers from Head Start and private childcare settings. SIP measurement focused on emotions children would feel during these situations, and their behaviour response decisions. The aims of the study were to examine foundations of these SIP responses in self-regulation and emotion knowledge, as well as to consider how adaptive SIP responding predicted concurrent classroom adjustment and pre-academic preacademic literacy. Using a PLS modelling procedure, results showed that both self-regulation and emotion knowledge were associated with adaptive SIP responding. Moreover, adaptive SIP responding predicted classroom adjustment and pre-academic preacademic literacy. Discussion centres on the contribution of social-emotional competence to preacademic literacy.
Acknowledgement
This study was funded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human. Development grant #R01HD51514. The authors would like to thank Afra Ahmad, Charlotte Anderson, Alyssa Perna Britt, Chavaughn Brown, Kelly Graling, Chazity Johnson, Bess Lam, Melissa Mincic, Carol Morris, So Ri Mun, Yana Segal Sirotkin, Sara Thayer, Erin Way, Todd Wyatt, and Jessy Zadrazil Newman for their unstinting assistance in study organization and data collection. The authors are grateful to the many children, families, and teachers who participated in this study, and the directors of the facilities who worked so cooperatively with us. Study sponsors were not involved in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of these data.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Dr. Susanne A. Denham is an applied developmental psychologist with particular expertise in the social and emotional development of children. Dr. Denham used her 11 years of hands-on experience as a school psychologist to aid in her research, which focuses on the role of emotional competence in children’s social and academic functioning, its assessment, and the role that parents and teachers play in fostering it. She has been funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, and others. She is editor of the journal Early Education and Development.
Dr. Hideko H. Bassett is an applied developmental psychologist focusing on social-emotional development of preschoolers. She has, since her PhD in 2007, worked to illuminate the socialization and assessment of emotional competence.