Parental Caregiving Capacity and Reading, Math, and Working Memory Development During Elementary School

Across the world, diverse stakeholders are concerned with young children’s widespread exposure to risk factors and the associated consequences. Sensitive and responsive parents can buffer children from the negative effects of adversity. This dissertation focuses on two specific experiences that may undermine parental resilience and caregiving capacity—household economic hardship and parental depressive symptoms—which are negatively associated with young children’s development and can hinder parents’ ability to protect children. Although longitudinal associations between economic hardship and parental mental health are well-studied, how these early family experiences shape children’s developmental trajectories across elementary school is surprisingly not well understood. Children’s early academic and cognitive skills are strong predictors of later learning outcomes. This dissertation examines how reading, math, and working memory skills develop during elementary school and how parents’ caregiving capacity predicts children’s initial skill levels and the rate of growth of these three domains. I draw on a nationally representative sample of kindergarteners in the 2010–2011 school year in the United States (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: 2010–11; N = 14,350; 52% girls; Mage = 6.1 years) to address the following research aims: to (1) investigate the developmental trajectories of reading, math, and working memory skills from kindergarten through fifth grade, including an assessment of differences in developmental patterns across the three domains; and (2) examine whether children typically differ in their initial levels and rates of growth in reading, math, and working memory based on the household’s income-to-needs ratio and parental depressive symptoms in kindergarten. Results from latent growth curve models demonstrated that reading, math, and working memory display slightly different growth patterns. Further, results showed that kindergarteners in households with higher income-to-needs ratios had higher skill levels at school entry, yet their growth was less steep and slowed more quickly over time. For kindergarteners with parents affected by depressive symptoms, results demonstrated a negative association with all three of their kindergarten skill levels, yet this did not shape their growth across the elementary school years. This longitudinal analysis may inform how early interventions can be extended throughout elementary school based on children’s changing needs.

Author dc:creator

• Suntheimer, Noelle, Marie

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wolf, Sharon

• Psychology
• K-12 Education

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/60382

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.upenn.edu:20.500.14332/60382