Social–emotional learning profiles of preschoolers' early school success: A person-centered approach

Abstract

Examined how aspects of social-emotional learning (SEL)—specifically, emotion knowledge, emotional and social behaviors, social problem-solving, and self-regulation—clustered to typify groups of children who differ in terms of their motivation to learn, participation in the classroom, and other indices of early school adjustment and academic success. 275 four-year-old children from private day schools and Head Start were directly assessed and observed in these areas, and preschool and kindergarten teachers provided information on social and academic aspects of their school success. Three groups of children were identified: SEL Risk, SEL Competent-Social/Expressive, and SEL Competent-Restrained. Group members differed on demographic dimensions of gender and center type, and groups differed in meaningful ways on school success indices, pointing to needed prevention/intervention programming. In particular, the SEL Risk group could benefit from emotion-focused programming, and the long-term developmental trajectory of the SEL Competent-Restrained group requires study.

Developmental differences in children’s interpersonal emotion regulation

“…This strategy requires emotion understanding (i.e., being able to represent others' emotional experiences as well as their causes and consequences) which improves with age (Payton et al, 2000). The same developmental pattern was found for cognitive engagement strategies which start to develop at the age of 4 and improve with age (Denham et al, 2012). This strategy involves emotion representation (Stegge et al, 2004), which may explain this developmental pattern.…”

“…When further analysing the content of the humor strategies both parents and children pointed out humor as a way to distract the target's attention away from the situation. Future research may explore whether humor conceptualized as reappraisal may only develop in older children and adolescents, given that reappraisal is more commonly used by older children and adolescents compared to younger children (e.g., Denham et al, 2012).…”

“…Stegge, Terwogt, Reijnjes & Van Tijen, 2004). Representation of emotions start at the age of 4 to 5 years-old (Denham et al, 2012) when children begin to understand the existence of mixed emotions (e.g. Larsen, To, & Fireman, 2007) or that different situations may lead to the same emotional experience (e.g.…”

Ready for kindergarten: Are intelligence skills enough?

“…The authors then examined how profile membership predicted achievement in the fifth grade. Although research using variable-centred approaches have generally concluded that socioemotional skills are nonsignificant predictors of later achievement (Duncan et al 2007), a recent study using a person-centred approach has found that socioemotional skills predict academic success when they are present in students with poor cognitive control (Denham et al 2012). This finding highlights the potential usefulness of applying person-centred approaches which are better suited for taking into account multiple and correlated characteristics of children.…”

Educational Counselling Of Pre-School Children For Adaptation To The Kindergarten Environment

“…Getting used to the social group represented by the pre-school / school institution is associated with the child's social-emotional profile (Denham et al, 2012), defined as the ability of socio-emotional learning, awareness of one's own emotions, social behaviors and emotional self-regulation. Such noncognitive abilities (Lipnevich, Roberts, 2012), including emotions, impulses and relationships with others, appear to be linked to the early experiences of the child, which draws attention to the importance of the emotional state of the pre-school child when we refer to his/ her ability to adapt to the pre-school environment (Knitzer, Raver, 2002).…”