The present investigation is a replication of an emergent literacy intervention in Head Start with a new cohort of children and includes a follow-up of both the original cohort and the replication cohort through the end of 2nd grade. Positive effects at the end of Head Start obtained in the original study were replicated, and effects on emergent literacy skills in both cohorts were maintained through the end of kindergarten. Effects of the emergent literacy intervention did not generalize to literacy outcomes at the end of 1st and 2nd grades. Growth in emergent literacy skills and literacy skills from year to year was strongly influenced by variation in the Head Start centers and school districts attended by children in the sample. Although children in the sample began formal reading instruction with relatively low levels of emergent literacy skills, they showed substantial gains with respect to national norms by the end of 2nd grade.

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An ecological model for school-based mental health services that targets urban low-income aggressive children--a highly vulnerable and underserved population--is presented. The goals of the model are to increase children's and teachers' involvement in the delivery of services and to increase the integration of these services into existing school resources and activities. The model proposes that mental health service providers work in collaboration with teachers to deliver services that (1) can be managed by existing school resources and personnel, (2) are related to empirically based factors associated with reduced aggression and increased social functioning, and (3) are group administered to increase the number of children served and to reduce stigmatization associated with mental health services. The model is individualized and flexible by acknowledging that contexts for aggression differ across classrooms and children and by providing services specific to those contexts. Two studies are presented illustrating the application of this model to decrease aggression and increase academic engagement in low-income urban public schools.

In any society, parenting beliefs are a reflection of that society's cultural values and traditions (J. U. Ogbu, 1981). Verbosity, a parenting behavior considered dysfunctional in European American culture, may not be problematic in Chinese culture. The authors recruited 31 Chinese American and 30 European American mothers and used questionnaires to measure parenting behaviors and child behavior problems. The Chinese American mothers also completed a questionnaire assessing their acculturation level. The Chinese American mothers had higher levels of verbosity than did the European American mothers; however, there were no differences between the groups in child behavior problems. The results also revealed higher levels of laxness in the Chinese American mothers compared to the European American mothers. Acculturation level did not predict verbosity or laxness levels. Results suggest that the effectiveness of a parenting style should be defined relative to cultural context.

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Variability in reasons for sharing narratives with their preschoolers was examined across samples of middle-class American mothers and Polish mothers. Participants responded to an open-ended interview question and completed a 54-item measure, the Parents’ Beliefs About Storytelling Questionnaire. Several significant differences were found across the samples. The American mothers more strongly endorsed the use of narratives to help their child remember important people in their lives and to teach moral or life lessons. They also indicated stronger beliefs that good narratives include contextual information, have chronological order, and tell a truthful story. Polish mothers more strongly indicated that they talk with their child about past events in order to help the child distinguish good from evil. Content analysis of the mothers’ responses to the open-ended question revealed that more Polish than American mothers reported talking with their child about past events to provide explanations to the child, provide emotional support to the child, and connect present events with past events. A greater proportion of American mothers as compared to Polish mothers indicated that they shared narratives with their child to assess the child’s memory. Many of the Polish mothers discussed a specific context in which they shared narratives with their child (i.e., when looking at photographs together).

This study examined the relationship between attention problems and expressive language and academic readiness skills in preschool-aged children from middleclass families. Forty-three children (44% female) were assessed individually for expressive language skills and knowledge of basic academic concepts (e.g. colours, letters and numbers). The primary caregiver of each child provided information regarding the child's attention problems, using the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1 1 / 2 -5 (CBCL/1 1 / 2 -5). Correlational analyses revealed that for boys, attention problems were related to less well-developed expressive language skills. For girls, there was a trend for attention problems to be related to lower performance on the academic skills measure. Screening for attention problems before children enter kindergarten is recommended, to identify those children likely to be in need of additional assistance in the early school grades.

Although parent-report measures continue to demonstrate higher levels of symptoms for siblings of children diagnosed with ADHD compared with control siblings, there are no indications that self-reported internalizing symptoms are different.