The relationships among environmental factors, social-emotional development, and academic readiness in Head Start children

Research indicates there is an increase in social-emotional delays among children from low-income families due to cultural differences, social-economical status, and lack of exposure to early childhood opportunities. This study investigated the problem by looking at the relationships among environmental factors, social-emotional delays, and academic readiness in Head Start children. The environmental factors addressed in this study included income, parent’s level of education, number of children in the household, and whether it was a single- or two-parent household. Participants in the study included approximately 200 children, aged three to five, from a New Mexico Community Action Program. The assessment each child used the standard social-emotional and developmental assessment tools administered by the Head Start program within 45 days of enrollment into the program. For each child, a teacher completed the Early Screening Inventory-Preschool, and a parent completed Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social Emotional, the Early Screening Inventory-Revised, and a Parent Survey/Demographic Questionnaire. The overall perspective of early childhood leaders in the field is that, if a child’s social-emotional development is sound and intact when transitioning to the school-age years, the child’s overall academic readiness heightens. The statistical analysis used to answer research questions one and two was a simple regression model, and a multiple regression model was used to answer research question three. A chi-square goodness-of-fit test investigated the distributions of the categorical variables, looking specifically at variations of the variables.