Social Skills and School Readiness in Young Children Exposed to Violence.

Witnessing violence is associated with negative outcomes for preschool-aged children, including lowered school readiness; however, not all children evidence negative outcome, indicating the presence of protective factors. This study examined social skills as a moderator of the relation between violence exposure and school readiness in preschoolaged children. Seventy-eight children completed a measure of school readiness, and their caregiver completed measures of social skills, witnessed violence exposure, and direct victimization. Results revealed that social skills moderated the witnessed violence- school readiness association, controlling for direct victimization and family income. When children evidenced more appropriate social skills, witnessed violence and school readiness were inversely related. However, for children whose caregivers endorsed less appropriate social skills, there was no association between witnessed violence and school readiness.

Latent profile analysis of teacher perceptions of parent contact and comfort.

The purpose of the study was to explore patterns of parent involvement as perceived by teachers and identify correlates of these patterns. Parent involvement indicators and correlates were selected from a review of existing research. Participants included 34 teachers and 577 children in kindergarten through third grade. The vast majority of the sample was African American (78%), followed by Caucasian (19%) and other ethnic backgrounds (2%). Two subscales from the Parent Involvement-Teacher scale, contact and comfort, were entered as indicators in a latent profile analysis to determine the number and types of parent involvement classes. Contact included the frequency of interactions between parents and teachers; comfort included the quality of their relationship with the parent and how well their goals were aligned. Subsequent latent class regressions were conducted to identify student, school, and family characteristics associated with class membership. Three classes provided the optimal solution. This included two classes of parents with low contact with teachers but different comfort levels; one with low contact and low comfort (11%), and one with low contact but high comfort (71%). The remaining class, representing 18% of parents, was rated high on both contact and comfort. Low income status, family problems, and social, emotional, academic, and self-regulation problems distinguished the low comfort class from the other two classes. It is imperative to help teachers feel more comfortable working with families who may be experiencing substantial stressors and who also have children who need support across school and home settings.