Behavioral self-regulation has emerged as an important predictor of academic success as early as preschool. Few studies, however, have examined ways to improve children's behavioral self-regulation in preschool, prior to formal school entry. This dissertation includes two studies examining a pilot intervention using classroom games to improve behavioral self-regulation with...
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Megan M. McClelland
Behavioral self-regulation has emerged as an important predictor of
Children’s self-regulation, or the ability for one to regulate their emotions and behaviors, is very important for children to succeed in school, and life in general. This study looks at the relationship between a child’s self-regulation in the fall of their kindergarten year and different aspects of family and the...
Over the past several decades, American families have adopted thousands of children from outside of the United States. A large percentage of international adoptions come from South Korea (Selman, 2012). Transracial Korean-American adoptees must navigate circumstances unique to their situations as individuals with a birth culture and an adoptive culture...
Children’s self-regulation and academic achievement are important factors in predicting school readiness and later academic outcomes. This study examined relationships between parental marital status and residential mobility on children’s academic achievement and self-regulation in kindergarten. Using a diverse sample of 131 kindergarten children, results indicated that the number of family...
Children’s self-regulation and socio-economic status are important factors in predicting later academic outcomes and kindergarten readiness.
This study examined relationships between socio-economic status (SES), gender differences, and performance on the Heads-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) self-regulation assessment.
Using a diverse sample of 408 preschool children, results indicated:
Low-income children in Head Start displayed...
According to recent research, children’s learning related skills, such as cooperation, self-regulation, responsibility, and independence, are closely related to their academic outcomes (McClelland, Acock, Morrison 2006). While self regulation during preschool and it’s related skills are predictors of later academic achievement, it might be beneficial to determine a simple screening...
In recent years, self-regulation has emerged as a foundational skill for academic success and well-being. Unfortunately, many children enter kindergarten without the self-regulation skills necessary to succeed. Children from high-risk backgrounds (e.g., low-income) are particularly vulnerable for difficulties in self-regulation development. Given these documented gaps in self-regulation, it has become...
The transition to kindergarten can be challenging for many children who do not have the necessary skills to meet the demands of classroom settings such as paying attention, remembering instructions, and demonstrating self-control. Children who lack the necessary behavioral regulation skills to meet the demands in the classroom environment are...
Executive functions (including attentional shifting/flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control) are strong predictors of children's early school success (Blair & Razza, 2007; Espy et al., 2004). The current study explored questions related to measurement of executive functions in preschool-aged children. Convergent and predictive validity were assessed for two traditional executive...
This project aimed to address the topic of children with disabilities through a well-researched children’s book. Dancing with my friend Maddie is a children’s book that focuses on a friendship between Claire, a typically developing first grader, and Maddie, a first grader with Down syndrome. Research has shown that addressing...
The present study examined if having an older sibling was significantly related to stronger selfregulation and achievement, in a sample of 74 preschool children participating in a selfregulation intervention. It was hypothesized that children with an older sibling in the fall would have higher self-regulation and achievement scores than children...
Self-regulation, defined as one’s ability to control their behaviors, cognitions, and emotions, is an important factor for children’s social, behavioral, and long-term academic performance. Speech/language skills have long been theorized to be important factors in the development of self-regulation and have been linked to various developmental outcomes, particularly in the...
Self-regulation is the ability to regulate cognitions, emotions and behaviors and is important for success in school and adaptation in children. The amount and quality of sleep a child receives can influence their development and self-regulation. This study examines the relationship between children’s self-regulation in the fall of their kindergarten...
Self-regulation is a cognitive mechanism that allows children to maintain control over their behaviors and emotions. The importance of this function is well-documented, but there is less understanding of the factors that affect children’s development of self-regulation. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine if parent stress in...
A parent’s criminal justice involvement (CJI) can have a lasting impact on their children. Additionally, if these children are involved in Child Protective Services (CPS) they have often faced a form of abuse or neglect and they may be increasingly vulnerable to additional risks. Although a literature base exists that...
The family context is an important aspect of a child’s environment that can provide helpful resources for fostering positive development or can be a source of risk. One risk factor that is present in an overwhelming number of families is low income status (Child Trends Databank, 2019). Children growing up...
Dual Language Learners (DLLs) represent a substantial subpopulation in United States preschool programs (Aikens, Kinas, Malone, Tarullo, & Harding, 2017). DLLs often come from low socio-economic backgrounds and encounter barriers to academic success (National Academies of Science, 2017; Thomas & Collier, 2002). One consistent predictor of academic success is executive...
Self-regulation, or an individual’s ability to control their emotions, behaviors, and cognitions, is one important factor of cognitive development during early childhood. The behavioral aspects of self-regulation have the potential to impact children’s success in formal education settings. Breastfeeding also has been shown to increase overall cognitive development at a...
Self-regulation in early childhood encompasses higher-order executive function processes and lower-order emotional responses that enable children to navigate the classroom environment. Although self-regulation and executive functions are overlapping constructs, self-regulation represents a broad assessment of children’s ability to call upon executive function processes in order to meet contextual demands. Prior...
Cognitive self-regulation and the behavioral manifestations of cognitive self-regulation are important aspects of school readiness, yet less is known about the variation in measurement modalities within children. In this dissertation, two studies examined the makeup, antecedents, and consequents of constellations of cognitive self-regulation (CSR) measures around the transition to formal...
Strong self-regulation skills can predict academic success in early childhood contexts, specifically for math and literacy skills, thus laying the foundation for future success (McClelland & Cameron, 2012; McClelland & Ponitz, 2011). Children’s exposure to increased instructional time in school through programs such as full day kindergarten (FDK) has also...
English Language Learners (ELLs) represent a culturally and linguistically diverse population in US schools. ELLs enter kindergarten with a range of academic and self-regulation skills, but can face multiple challenges navigating the school context (Zwiers, 2013). Previous research documents that low-income ELLs lagged behind in academic achievement, self-regulation, and English...
Early learning skills, such as executive function (EF), are a key component of healthy development and predict long-term academic success. Yet many children are entering kindergarten without the necessary skills (including EF) that are needed to set them on a successful learning trajectory. Early prekindergarten classrooms that encourage a high...
Self-regulation skills lay the foundation for short- and long-term school success, and strengthening these skills in early childhood can have significant implications for immediate and future life outcomes (e.g., Blair & Diamond, 2008; McClelland, Acock, Piccinin, Rhea, & Stallings, 2013). A large body of literature has investigated how characteristics of...
Empirical studies and theory have identified many early predictors of children's academic achievement and externalizing problems. Moreover, research shows that children's early cognitive abilities and behavioral problems are strong predictors of later academic achievement and externalizing problems. The current dissertation studies extend previous work and unpack how early predictors relate...
Positive teacher-child relationships, characterized by warmth and closeness, are associated with better behavioral and academic outcomes for children in preschool and elementary school (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). Supporting teachers to establish these positive relationships with children is important in all early care and education (ECE) programs. Head Start programs, designed...
Children's early self-regulation skills have long-term implications for a variety of academic, social, and health outcomes. Unfortunately, children facing multiple family risk factors (e.g., harsh parenting, economic disadvantage) are more likely to struggle with early self-regulation. Despite early disparities in self-regulation, promising intervention evidence suggests that high quality prekindergarten experiences...
Parents play an essential role in their child’s development of the skills needed for self-regulation. The current study examined the relationship between parental marital status and child self-regulation. Analyzing a sample of 328 preschool children, results indicate having married parents is related to higher self-regulation in children. These results suggest...
The current study examined relations between temperamental reactivity at 6 months and social competence in first grade, including if emotion regulation at 54 months played a role as mediator and/or moderator between temperamental reactivity and social competence in first grade. Previous studies have shown that children who are high on...
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_________________________________________________________________
Megan M. McClelland
The current study examined relations between temperamental reactivity at
The present study investigated how the home literacy environment and children's learning-related social skills independently and interactively predicted early literacy skills in a sample of 72 children. Hierarchical regressions revealed that the home literacy environment predicted children's early reading and vocabulary skills, when controlling for maternal education and child age....
Increasing numbers of children are entering kindergarten without the behavioral skills needed to cope with the demands of the classroom environment. Moreover, a number of studies have documented that young children's behavioral regulation (including attention, working memory, and inhibitory control skills) plays an important role in later academic achievement (McClelland,...
Children who have multiple family risk factors are at increased risk for poor developmental outcomes, including poor academic achievement. The present study focused on charting the pathways through which early family risk – as indexed by ethnic minority status, low maternal education, low family income, and chronic maternal depressive symptoms...
Recent research has examined complex relationships between parent and child characteristics and the development of children’s social-emotional competencies. The over-arching objective of the current study was to compare differential patterns of predictability between the individual social-emotional competencies of cooperation, responsibility, and independence, and a social-emotional competency composite, to parental warmth...
In the United States, children from underserved racial/ethnic backgrounds encounter greater environmental risk both in terms of the physical environment (e.g., housing quality, access to resources like health services and jobs, and exposure to environmental toxins) and the social environment (e.g., social support, neighborhood crime, racism, and discrimination), due to...
Early behavioral regulation has been identified as an important component of school readiness, yet few easy-to-administer measures exist that directly assess this skill in young children outside of the United States (U.S.). In this dissertation, two studies were conducted to examine the reliability and validity of a direct measure of...