Faced with persisting disparities in educational achievement, there is a pressing need to understand processes that promote early school success in children at risk for academic problems. Promising evidence indicates that executive function (EF) skills play a central role in successful transitions to school among young children, especially disadvantaged children. EF skills are those involved in cognitive self-control of behavior, including directing and shifting attention, resisting distractions, and inhibiting impulses. Children with good EF skills fare better in the school context, both in terms of learning and social competence. There is also evidence that EF can be improved through strategic intervention. This project will examine the role of EF skills in the school success of young homeless/highly mobile students who represent a substantial proportion of the low-income children at highest risk for academic problems in urban school districts. Chronic adversities associated with poverty and mobility may alter physiological stress response systems and undermine the early development of neural systems associated with EF. As a result, children may face the challenges of school and life with poor EF skills, as well as difficulties regulating stress. Nonetheless, some children growing up in adversity succeed in school, and their resilience may be related to protections afforded by good parenting and the development of effective stress regulation and EF skills. To examine the role of EF in school success among homeless/highly mobile children, this study will assess children entering kindergarten from shelters for homeless families and follow their adjustment during this important school year. Through assessments of child, parent, and parent-child interactions, this study will test the connections of family adversity, risk, and parenting to EF skills, stress regulation, and success in school. Cortisol, a stress hormone, will be sampled from the children's saliva to assess stress reactivity. School outcomes will be assessed through teacher reports and school records of standardized tests and attendance. Better EF skills are expected in children with lower family risk, better parenting, and good stress regulation, who consequently will do well in school. EF skills are expected to show protective effects for learning and social adjustment in these high-risk children.
Results are expected to inform developmental theory on EF, risk and resilience, and the design of educational programs and interventions to address achievement disparities and promote early school success in disadvantaged children. The project will provide insights into processes that may enhance or inhibit learning and adaptation in a context of high adversity and change. Results will elucidate how EF skills may facilitate successful transitions to school in an under-studied population of low-income, highly mobile children whose success may prove crucial to closing achievement gaps in American education.
This study aimed to advance knowledge about executive functions in young children experiencing homelessness, with the goal of informing programs and policies to promote academic resilience among highly disadvantaged, residentially mobile children. Executive functions (EF) are neurocognitive processes involved in the top-down control of attention or actions to achieve goals. These skills develop rapidly in preschoolers through brain development, practice, and learning, and are viewed as essential for school readiness. They help children pay attention, listen to the teacher, wait for a turn, inhibit impulses, think flexibly, follow instructions, and generally engage in self-control. EF was assessed by a set of established measures administered while the children were staying in emergency shelter with their families. Results confirmed our hypothesis that young homeless children who showed better EF skills would have better school success, beyond what would be expected based on general intellectual functioning alone. EF also was related to higher quality parenting, measured in a variety of ways, including observations of parent-child interaction in structured tasks. Results suggest that one key way effective parenting "goes to school" is through supporting and protecting healthy development of EF in children. Better EF scores also were related to lower levels of salivary cortisol, a hormone involved in stress response, cognitive development, and health. These findings have implications for policy and practice regarding strategies to promote school readiness among homeless and residentially unstable children. Our results suggest that EF and parenting skills, as well as stress levels in children, may be promising targets for well-timed interventions. Results also demonstrate that it is feasible to implement high quality assessments with families on location in emergency shelters, with high participation rates and reliable results. We further examined the risks to learning posed by homelessness and residential instability by analyzing longitudinal administrative data from the local school district. Each year students in this district complete standardized tests in reading and math. Meanwhile, the district maintains records of whether students were homeless or residentially unstable, and/or if they qualified for income-based services like free or reduced-price meals. This made it possible to track changes in achievement over time for more than 26,000 students, comparing those who were homeless or highly mobile (HHM) to other low-income children and to more advantaged children. Results reveal persistent achievement gaps. HHM students had lower achievement over time than children qualified for free lunch who in turn were lower than national averages and far below more advantaged students. Furthermore, over the course of six years, about 14% of students tested in grades 3 to 8 in the district were identified as HHM, suggesting that efforts to close the marked achievement disparities observed in this and many other urban school districts will require attention to the needs and issues of homeless/mobile students. At the same time, our results indicate striking variation in the achievement of homeless and residentially unstable students. Despite the low average scores of the HHM group, about 45% of these students were achieving in the average or better range over time, indicating academic resilience. A subsequent study of more than 18,000 students from the district data found that gaps for homeless and low-income students were already evident in first grade reading scores. Students with better early reading scores had better reading and math achievement in later grades, and reading skills appeared to be especially important for academic success in the most disadvantaged children. These "big picture" findings have implications for efforts to address achievement disparities in urban school districts, underscoring the widely varying needs of homeless children, as well as their significance for closing achievement gaps.
