Are trajectories of self-regulation abilities from ages 2-3 to 6-7 associated with academic achievement in the early school years?

PROTOCOL: Key characteristics of effective preschool-based interventions to promote self-regulation: A systematic review and meta-analysis

This is the protocol for a Cochrane Review. The objectives are as follows: The aim of this systematic review is to advance our understanding of the key characteristics of effective preschool-based interventions designed to foster self-regulation. To accomplish this, the review addresses the following questions: 1. What types of preschool-based interventions have been developed to promote self-regulation? 2. What is the average effect of these preschool-based interventions on self-regulation, focusing on four key constructs: integrative effortful control, integrative executive function, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning? 3. What characteristics-such as Resource Allocation, Activity Type, and Instruction Method-could potentially contribute to the effects of preschool-based interventions in promoting self-regulation?

A longitudinal examination of school-related and mental health mediators linking emotion regulation to academic achievement

Emotion regulation is assumed to underlie academic achievement through different mechanisms (e.g., a positive orientation toward school and schoolwork, better mental health). However, few studies have contrasted these mediating mechanisms within a longitudinal analytic framework, which is necessary to determine which mechanism(s) are most likely to translate emotion regulation into academic success over time. The present study addressed this gap by examining whether children's emotion regulation capacities were associated with later academic achievement through school-related (i.e., school bonding and academic motivation) and mental health mediators (i.e., internalizing and externalizing symptoms). Participants included 300 4- and 8-year-old children (n = 150 in each age cohort; 50% female) and their caregivers from Canada. Measures were collected over 4 years. Path analyses indicated that higher emotion regulation (T1; age 4/8 years) was associated with better academic achievement 3 years later (T4; age 7/11 years) through stronger school bonding and lower internalizing symptoms in the interim (T2; age 5/9 years; the indirect effect through internalizing symptoms held after controlling for initial levels of internalizing symptoms). Significant effects were derived from both caregiver and child informants when applicable and indirect effects held across age cohorts and genders. Findings highlight the interplay of social-emotional, academic, and mental health development across childhood, as well as the potential benefits of extending academic interventions to the social-emotional and mental health domains.

Temperament and School Readiness - A Literature Review

This review study was conducted to describe how temperament is related to school readiness. The basic research question was whether there is any relationship between later school success and temperament in children and, if so, what characterizes it. A systematic search of databases and journals identified 27 papers that met the two criteria: temperament and school readiness. The analytical strategy followed the PRISMA method. The research confirmed the direct relationship between temperament and school readiness. There is a statistically significant relationship between temperament and school readiness. Both positive and negative emotionality influence behavior (especially concentration), which is reflected in the approach to learning and school success.

Investigation of the associations between physical activity, self-regulation and educational outcomes in childhood

It is common knowledge that physical activity leads to physiological and psychological benefits. The current study explored the association between physical activity and self-regulation longitudinally and the indirect relationship this may have on academic achievement, using secondary data on primary and secondary school children from the Millennium Cohort Study, a cohort of infants born in 2000–2001 in the United Kingdom. There are two main findings. First, there is a positive link between physical activity and emotional (not behavioural) regulation both concurrently and longitudinally across all three time points, 7-years-old, 11-years-old and 14-years-old. The relationship was negative for emotional regulation and negligible for behavioural regulation when controlling for socioeconomic status. Second, across two time points (due to data availability), physical activity positively predicted academic achievement through emotional regulation for 7-year-olds and behavioural regulation in 11-year-olds. The impact of this relationship was more pronounced when controlling for socioeconomic status. Together these findings indicate that emotional regulation is linked to physical activity in early childhood. Subsequently, emotion regulation predicts academic attainment, suggesting that early interventions might focus on attention rather than behaviour.

Proximal and distal predictors of self-regulatory change in children aged 4 to 7 years

Background

Growth in early self-regulation skills has been linked to positive health, wellbeing, and achievement trajectories across the lifespan. While individual studies have documented specific influences on self-regulation competencies in early childhood, few have modelled a comprehensive range of predictors of self-regulation change across health, development, and environment simultaneously. This study aimed to examine the concurrent associations among a range of proximal and distal influences on change in children’s self-regulation skills over 2 years from age 4–5 years.

Methods

Data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (N = 4983) were used in a structural equation model, predicting a multi-source composite measure of self-regulation at each of 4–5 years and 6–7 years. By controlling for earlier self-regulation and covariates, the model examined the relative contributions of a comprehensive range of variables to self-regulation change including health, development, educational, home environment, time-use, and neighbourhood characteristics.

Results

The significant predictors of children’s self-regulation growth across 4 to 7 years were fewer behavioural sleep problems, higher gross motor and pre-academic skills, lower levels of maternal and paternal angry parenting, and lower levels of financial hardship. There were also marginal effects for high-quality home learning environments and child-educator relationships.

Conclusion

Findings suggest that if we are to successfully foster children’s self-regulation skills, interventionists would do well to operate not only on children’s current capacities but also key aspects of their surrounding context.

Der längsschnittliche Zusammenhang zwischen vorschulischen Selbstregulationsfähigkeiten und akademischen Kompetenzen in der Grundschule

Zusammenfassung. Die Vorhersagekraft selbstregulatorischer Fähigkeiten für die Entwicklung früher akademischer Kompetenzen wurde vielfach hervorgehoben. Allerdings bestehen häufig variierenden Definitionen von Selbstregulation, die mit verschiedenen Operationalisierungsvarianten einhergehen. Das Ziel dieses systematischen Reviews ist es, unter Berücksichtigung der verschiedenen Definitionen, eine Übersicht der Ergebnisse zur Vorhersagekraft vorschulischer Selbstregulationsfähigkeiten auf die akademischen Kompetenzen in der Grundschule zu erstellen. Eine systematische Literaturrecherche in den bibliografischen Fachdatenbanken Web of Science, PsycINFO und Psyndex ergab 1.509 Studien, von denen 22 Studien die weiteren Einschlusskriterien erfüllt haben. Trotz unterschiedlicher Erhebungsmethoden und Definitionen unterstützen die Studienergebnisse übereinstimmend die bedeutende Rolle vorschulischer Selbstregulationsfähigkeiten für die Entwicklung mathematischer Kompetenzen und Lese- und Schreibfähigkeiten in den frühen Grundschuljahren. Insbesondere kognitive Aspekte der Selbstregulation scheinen im Zusammenhang mit der Schulleistungsfähigkeit von Kindern zu stehen. Implikationen für frühe Trainingsmaßnahmen und die Übertragbarkeit der Erkenntnisse der vorwiegend internationalen Studien auf das deutsche Bildungssystem werden diskutiert.

The controlled direct effect of temperament at 2-3 years on cognitive and academic outcomes at 6-7 years

There is widespread interest in temperament and its impact upon cognitive and academic outcomes. Parents adjust their parenting according to their child’s temperament, however, few studies have accounted for parenting while estimating the association between temperament and academic outcomes. We examined the associations between temperament (2–3 years) and cognitive and academic outcomes (6–7 years) when mediation by parenting practices (4–5 years) was held constant, by estimating the controlled direct effect. Participants were from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 5107). Cognitive abilities were measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (verbal) and the Matrix Reasoning test (non-verbal). Literacy and numeracy were reported by teachers using the Academic Rating Scale. Mothers reported children’s temperament using the Short Temperament Scale for Toddlers (subscales: reactivity, approach, and persistence). Parenting practices included items about engagement in activities with children. Marginal structural models with inverse probability of treatment weights were used to estimate the controlled direct effect of temperament, when setting parenting to the mean. All temperament subscales were associated with cognitive abilities, with persistence showing the largest associations with verbal (PPVT; β = 0.58; 95%CI 0.27, 0.89) and non-verbal (Matrix Reasoning: β = 0.19; 0.02, 0.34) abilities. Higher persistence was associated with better literacy (β = 0.08; 0.03, 0.13) and numeracy (β = 0.08; 0.03, 0.13), and higher reactivity with lower literacy (β = -0.08; -0.11, -0.05) and numeracy (β = -0.07; -0.10, -0.04). There was little evidence that temperamental approach influenced literacy or numeracy. Overall, temperament had small associations with cognitive and academic outcomes after accounting for parenting and confounders.

Multiple risk exposures for reading achievement in childhood and adolescence

Background

Literacy is championed as a pathway out of poverty, yet it is vulnerable to the risk circumstances it seeks to mitigate. This study explored the developmental circumstances that gave rise to stark inequalities in reading achievement in Australian children across 6 years of school.

Methods

We used data from Growing up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children linked to Australia’s National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy across school years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Latent class analysis and growth curve modelling (n=4983) were used to identify risk profiles for reading achievement for children (ages 8.2–15.2).

Results

Four distinct profiles were identified: developmentally enabled profile (62% of children); sociodemographic risk profile (25% of children); child development risk profile (11% of children); and sociodemographic and child development (double disadvantage) risk profile (2% of children). Children with a developmentally enabled profile achieved the expected rate of growth of 1.0 year per year of school across years 3, 5, 7 and 9. By comparison, children with sociodemographic and/or child development risk profiles started behind their developmentally enabled peers, and lost ground over time.

Discussion

Across 6 years of school, multiple risk-exposed children lagged behind low risk-exposed children in the order of years of lost gains in reading achievement. The results point to the complex contexts of educational disadvantage and the need for cross-cutting social, health and education policies and coordinated multiagency intervention efforts to break the cycle of educational disadvantage.

Hot and Cool Self-Regulation, Academic Competence, and Maladjustment: Mediating and Differential Relations

This study examined differential and mediating relations between hot and cool self-regulation (M_age  = 48.2 months; N = 1,155, 48% girls), first-grade (M_age  = 77.5 months) maladjustment (externalizing [EXT] and internalizing [INT] behavior), and first- and second-grade (M_age  = 89.5 months) academic competence (AC). Using teacher reported EXT, INT, and AC, partial support for the differential perspective was found in that only hot self-regulation was significantly related to EXT, whereas both hot and cool self-regulation was significantly related to AC. Moreover, hot self-regulation indirectly predicted second-grade AC through first-grade EXT, lending some support for the mediating perspective also. The findings contribute to an understanding of how self-regulation is related to academic and behavioral school adjustment.

Trajectories of the Expression of Negative Emotion from Kindergarten to First Grade: Associations with Academic Outcomes

We examined individual trajectories, across four time points, of children's (N = 301) expression of negative emotion in classroom settings and whether these trajectories predicted their observed school engagement, teacher-reported academic skills, and passage comprehension assessed with a standardized measure in first grade. In latent growth curve analyses, negative expressivity declined from kindergarten to first grade with significant individual differences in trajectories. Negative expressivity in kindergarten inversely predicted first grade school engagement and teacher-reported academic skills, and the slope of negative expressivity from kindergarten to first grade inversely predicted school engagement (e.g., increasing negative expressivity was associated with lower school engagement). In addition, we examined if prior academic functioning in kindergarten moderated the association between negative expressivity (level in kindergarten and change over time) and academic functioning in first grade. The slope of negative expressivity was negatively associated with first grade school engagement and passage comprehension for children who had lower kindergarten school engagement and passage comprehension, respectively, but was unrelated for those with higher academic functioning in kindergarten. That is, for children who had lower kindergarten school engagement and passage comprehension, greater declines in negative expressivity were associated with higher first grade school engagement and passage comprehension, respectively. The findings suggest that negative emotional expressivity in school is associated with academic outcomes in first grade and, in some cases, this association is more pronounced for children who had lower kindergarten academic functioning.

Do early life cognitive ability and self-regulation skills explain socio-economic inequalities in academic achievement? An effect decomposition analysis in UK and Australian cohorts

Socio-economic inequalities in academic achievement emerge early in life and are observed across the globe. Cognitive ability and "non-cognitive" attributes (such as self-regulation) are the focus of many early years' interventions. Despite this, little research has compared the contributions of early cognitive and self-regulation abilities as separate pathways to inequalities in academic achievement. We examined this in two nationally representative cohorts in the UK (Millennium Cohort Study, n = 11,168; 61% original cohort) and Australia (LSAC, n = 3028; 59% original cohort). An effect decomposition method was used to examine the pathways from socio-economic disadvantage (in infancy) to two academic outcomes: 'low' maths and literacy scores (based on bottom quintile) at age 7-9 years. Risk ratios (RRs, and bootstrap 95% confidence intervals) were estimated with binary regression for each pathway of interest: the 'direct effect' of socio-economic disadvantage on academic achievement (not acting through self-regulation and cognitive ability in early childhood), and the 'indirect effects' of socio-economic disadvantage acting via self-regulation and cognitive ability (separately). Analyses were adjusted for baseline and intermediate confounding. Children from less advantaged families were up to twice as likely to be in the lowest quintile of maths and literacy scores. Around two-thirds of this elevated risk was 'direct' and the majority of the remainder was mediated by early cognitive ability and not self-regulation. For example in LSAC: the RR for the direct pathway from socio-economic disadvantage to poor maths scores was 1.46 (95% CI: 1.17-1.79). The indirect effect of socio-economic disadvantage through cognitive ability (RR = 1.13 [1.06-1.22]) was larger than the indirect effect through self-regulation (1.05 [1.01-1.11]). Similar patterns were observed for both outcomes and in both cohorts. Policies to alleviate social inequality (e.g. child poverty reduction) remain important for closing the academic achievement gap. Early interventions to improve cognitive ability (rather than self-regulation) also hold potential for reducing inequalities in children's academic outcomes.

Sleep and Self-Regulation from Birth to 7 Years: A Retrospective Study of Children with and Without Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder at 8 to 9 Years

OBJECTIVE

To examine mean level differences and longitudinal and reciprocal relations among behavioral sleep problems, emotional dysregulation, and attentional regulation across early childhood for children with and without attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at 8 to 9 years.

METHOD

This study used data from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC)-Infant Cohort (n = 4,109 analyzed). Children with and without ADHD were identified at age 8 to 9 years via parent report of ADHD diagnosis and the 5-item Inattention-Hyperactivity subscale from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Maternal report of child sleep problems and self-regulation was collected at 0 to 1, 2 to 3, 4 to 5, and 6 to 7 years of age. Analysis of variance was used to compare mean level differences in sleep problems and emotional and attentional regulation by ADHD group. Longitudinal structural equation modeling examined the relations among sleep and self-regulation across time in children with and without ADHD.

RESULTS

Children with ADHD had persistently elevated levels of sleep problems (from infancy) and emotional and attentional dysregulation compared to controls (from 2 to 3 years of age). Sleep problems, emotional dysregulation, and attentional regulation were stable over time for both groups. Sleep problems were associated with greater emotional dysregulation 2 years later from 2 to 3 years of age for both groups, which in turn was associated with poorer attentional regulation. There was no direct relationship between sleep problems and later attentional regulation.

CONCLUSION

Sleep problems in children with and without ADHD are associated with emotional dysregulation, which in turn contributes to poorer attentional functioning. This study highlights the importance of assessing and managing sleep problems in young children.