Language skills, behaviour problems, and classroom emotional support among preschool children from low-income families

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between language skills and behavioural problems and the potential moderating role of the quality of classroom emotional support in this relationship among 242 preschool children from low-income families. The Preschool Language Scale-5 was administered individually to each child. The quality of classroom emotional support was measured using the Emotional Support domain of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System for Pre-Kindergarten. Teachers and parents completed the Child Behaviour Checklist for Ages 1½–5. Results indicated the inverse relationship between language skills and behaviour problems varied by the level of classroom emotional support provided by teachers. Specifically, children with lower language skills exhibited higher levels of behaviour problems in classrooms where teachers provided lower levels of emotional support. Findings from this study have important implications for enhancing teachers’ emotional support aimed at children with lower language skills and for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Language
• classroom emotional support
• behaviour problems
• preschool
• low income

Acknowledgement

We thank the children and families who participated in this study, as well as the teachers and directors of the Head Start centres for their collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Cathy Hi Qi is a Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of New Mexico. Her research interests include language and behaviour assessments of preschool children from low-income families, classroom quality, and evidence-based interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder. She has conducted two longitudinal studies funded by the National Institutes of Health on language, behaviour, social skills among children enrolled in Head Start programmes. Currently, she is Associate Editor of Young Exceptional Children.

Almut Zieher is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology in the Department of Individual, Family and Community Education at the University of New Mexico. Her research interstes are on cognitive and socioemotional facets of learning. Her current research focuses on how mindfulness and emotion-regulation trainings with teachers influence teacher well-being, teacher responsiveness to students, and teacher-student co-regulation. She uses longitudinal data collection and analysis methods to better understand how interventions translate into beneficial teacher and student outcomes.

Dr. M. Lee Van Horn is a Professor of Educational Psychology in the Department of Individual, Family and Community Education and Director of the Methodology Group at the University of New Mexico. His research focuses on understanding statistical methods for assessing individual differences. His current research focuses on statistical and applied issues around regression mixture models. He has applied these methods to diverse areas around human development including academic performance for at-risk students, modelling causes of delinquency and drug use in adolescence, and promoting physical activity.

Dr. Bulotsky-Shearer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Child Division at the University of Miami. Her research has focused on (a) developing measurement tools for early childhood programmes serving low-income children to assess preschool social emotional adjustment within the classroom context, and (b) examining dynamic, longitudinal associations between social emotional competence and academic readiness, and contextual factors within the family and school contexts that promote early school success. She has also developed interventions to support social emotional competence for children displaying challenging behaviour in Head Start programmes.

Dr. Judith Carta is Interim Director of the Juniper Gardens Children's Project, a Senior Scientist in the Institute for Life Span Studies, and Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas. Her science focuses on developing strategies to minimize the effects of poverty on children's outcomes and developing practices that teachers and parents can use to promote children's language, early literacy and social outcomes. Her key research and policy interests include advancing the quality of children's caregiving environments, methods for monitoring the progress of young children, and strategies for promoting family engagement in early intervention programmes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development under the Exploratory/Development Grant [1R21HD069759-01A1] awarded to the first author and University of New Mexico and to the fourth author and the University of Kansas.