Consistent evidence points to the importance of the early childhood home environment for children's concurrent and subsequent development. Yet little is known about the long-term association between parental warmth in early childhood and children's social-emotional well-being in late childhood for children with and without disabilities. To explore…

Evidence has suggested that preschool and kindergarten experiences affect the cognitive and social-emotion development of language-minority students (LMS). This quantitative study aims to illustrate the LMS' preschool and kindergarten experience by investigating the preschool and kindergarten experience, family environment, and school environment.…

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), this dissertation examined the relationship between pre-K quality and children's academic achievement at 54 months and in first, third, and fifth grades, controlling for child and family covariates and the…

Both early childhood maternal language input and the quality of classroom instruction in elementary school have been shown to be important environmental supports in predicting children's literacy skill development. However, no studies have simultaneously examined these two environmental supports in relation to children's early language skills and…

We examined whether the early learning environment predicts children's 5th grade skills in 2,204 families from ethnically diverse, low-income backgrounds; tested the mediating roles of children's pre-kindergarten school-related skills and later learning environment; and asked whether lagged associations generalize across White, Black, Hispanic…

Background: The acquired skill set prior to school entry has emerged as an important issue in research and policy internationally. Much evidence exists advocating the importance of early numeracy and literacy skills in later academic achievement and economic outcomes of students. Aim: The goal of this study was to determine the association between…