The current study examined how parental cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusiveness measured during children's prekindergarten year were related to children's verbal and nonverbal abilities 1 year later. Participants were 110 Head Start children and their caregivers from primarily rural and low-income backgrounds. Analysis of children's scores on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities confirmed the predictive utility of cognitive stimulation, emotional support, and intrusive behavior for perceptual scores (20% of the unique variance) as well as the predictive utility of emotional support and intrusive behavior for verbal scores (15% of the unique variance). Parental emotional support during guidance of problem solving (positive feedback) explained statistically significant unique variance in children's perceptual scores beyond other measures of emotional support. Cognitive stimulation moderated the relation between positive feedback and perceptual scores. Although other syntactic forms of maternal utterances such as commands did not explain statistically significant unique variance in children's scores beyond emotional support and intrusive behavior, mothers' questions did. Specific policy implications of the effects are discussed.

Numerous researchers have explored discipline practices in schools in the United States and have found racial disparities as well as the disproportionate use of exclusionary practices for students with disabilities. However, less attention has been paid to students with a subgroup of disabilities, including emotional disturbances, learning disabilities, and autism. We compared rates of suspension, expulsion, referral to law enforcement, and drop out among students with and without those particular disabilities within the Chicago Public Schools system to see if there were disparities. We hypothesized that students with these specified disabilities would experience higher rates of exclusionary discipline practices. We conducted a series of chisquare analyses using system-wide data and determined that students with these disabilities were suspended, expelled, referred to law enforcement, and dropped out at higher rates than those without disabilities. The magnitude of these disparities varied as a function of the specific disciplinary practice and the disability type. We provide suggestions for future research in addition to alternatives to exclusionary discipline.

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