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Author(s): Anna Volodina [sup.1] , Sabine Weinert [sup.1] , Elizabeth Washbrook [sup.2] , Jane Waldfogel [sup.3] , Sarah Jiyoon Kwon [sup.3] , Yi Wang [sup.3] , Valentina Perinetti Casoni [sup.2] [...], Child outcomes vary by family's socioeconomic status (SES). Research on explanatory factors underlying early SES-related disparities has mainly focused on specific child outcomes (e.g., language skills) and selected influencing factors in single countries often with a focus on individual differences but not explicitly on early SES-related gaps. This study uses harmonised data from longitudinal large-scale studies conducted in the United Kingdom, United States, and Germany to examine parental education-related gaps in early child language and social skills. Twelve theoretically proposed family-, child-, and childcare-related factors were systematically evaluated as explanatory factors. In all countries, parental education-related gaps were particularly pronounced for early child language compared to social skills. In the decomposition analyses, the home learning environment was the only measure that significantly explained gaps in all child outcomes across all countries. Early centre-based care attendance, family income, and maternal age at childbirth contributed to gaps in child outcomes with the specific pattern of results varying across outcomes and countries. Maternal depressive feelings significantly contributed only to explaining gaps in children's social skills. Thus, while some mechanisms found to underpin early parental education-related gaps can be generalized from single-country, single-domain studies, others are outcome- and context-specific.

Deficits in language skills are a risk factor for later aggressive behaviour. However, previous research has mainly addressed clinical or high-risk samples and relations between language and aggressive behaviour in preschoolers and children in primary school. Based on a German longitudinal project with N = 547 typically developing children, the present study investigated whether the effects of young children's language skills on their aggressive behaviour and their hostile intent attribution (HIA) can still be observed in adolescence. Path models showed that language at age 3 predicted aggressive behaviour (measured with self-ratings of various facets of aggression) and HIA (assessed with the Intent Attributions and Feelings of Distress Measure adopted from) over a 10-year period, while controlling for important child and family characteristics and initial levels of aggressive behaviour at age 3. Moreover, the predictive impact of early language on aggressive behaviour was mediated by HIA but not by parental ratings of their children's positive peer relations with classmates at age 7. Implications and directions for future research are proposed.

Studies on the emergence of effects of socioeconomic inequality typically report that socioeconomic background is positively associated with early cognitive abilities. However, studies on looking behaviour in habituation tasks rarely investigate this association, although such tasks are standard in measuring cognitive abilities in infants. The current study aimed to explore the emergence and magnitude of the effects of socioeconomic background, as one aspect of socioeconomic inequality, on cognitive abilities in the first two years of life, using a dataset from a large-scale German cohort study. We modelled looking behaviour using growth curve modelling and found no significant effects at 7 months. However, we found positive effects of socioeconomic background on the initial looking time (intercept) and overall looking time at 17 months, but not on the looking decrement (slope). The results are discussed regarding the specificities of the data, as the habituation task was administered in a household setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic language has been shown to significantly contribute to success across school subjects. However, to date, there are no empirical studies addressing its development across primary school age. The present study investigated the growth of academic vocabulary and influential conditions from Grades 2 to 4 based on a newly developed and validated test instrument. Drawing on a German sample of 472 children (N = 281 language minority learners) we found evidence of a "Matthew effect" with the group of language minority learners showing both lower initial level and lower growth rates compared to their monolingual peers. In addition, results of simple and full conditional growth curve models underline the significant impact of family background (parental education, books at home) and of children's nonverbal cognitive abilities on the intercept as well as the growth of academic vocabulary, thereby supporting the assumption of an additional Matthew effect according to family background, particularly in monolingual majority language children. Our results indicate the need for an early promotion of the register of academic language in monolingual as well as language minority students.

Including students with special educational needs in learning (SEN-L) is a challenge for large-scale assessments. In order to draw inferences with respect to students with SEN-L and to compare their scores to students in general education, one needs to assure that the measurement model is reliable and that the same construct is measured for different samples and test forms. In this article, we focus on testing the appropriateness of competence assessments for students with SEN-L. We specifically asked how the reading competence of students with SEN-L may be assessed reliably and comparably. We thoroughly evaluated different testing accommodations for students with SEN-L. The reading competence of N = 433 students with SEN-L was assessed using a standard reading test, a reduced test version, and an easy test version. Also, N = 5,208 general education students and a group of N = 490 low-performing students were tested. Results show that all three reading test versions are suitable for a reliable and comparable measurement of reading competence in students without SEN-L. For students with SEN-L, the accommodated test versions considerably reduced the amount of missing values and resulted in better psychometric properties than the standard test. They did not, however, show satisfactory item fit and measurement invariance. Implications for future research are discussed.

The present study examines the longitudinal and differential impact of different dimensions of the early years home learning environment (HLE) on children's reading and mathematical competencies in secondary school, while taking early developmental outcomes and HLE during secondary school into account. During the preschool years, 554 three-year-old children were tested and have been followed up to the age of 13. The results show that book exposure and the quality of verbal interactions regarding mathematics both predicted mathematical outcomes in secondary school and that those effects were mediated through early language and arithmetic skills. Reading outcomes in secondary school were not directly predicted by early HLE but indirectly via early language and literacy skills. Path models reveal that the different dimensions of the early HLE were differentially associated with preschoolers' early competencies. All effects remained significant when including the concurrent HLE during secondary school which predicted reading outcomes directly.

International study results point to potential negative associations of time spent in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres in the first 3 years of a child's life and socio-emotional outcomes. However, the transferability of international results to the German ECEC system and the impact of characteristics of the home learning environment and the child on these effects remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated (a) whether the duration of ECEC is associated with child's socio-emotional outcomes and (b) whether results differ according to child's temperament and parental sensitivity by using data of the German National Educational Panel Study. Contrary to international study results, we find that, irrespective of parental sensitivity, more years spent in early childcare under the age of 3 significantly relates to lower rates of peer problems. Particularly children with a moderately difficult temperament seem to profit from attending more years in ECEC with regard to their prosocial behaviour.

Self-regulation is an essential ability of children to cope with various developmental challenges. This study examines the developmental interplay between emotional and behavioral self-regulation during childhood and the relationship with academic achievement using data from the longitudinal Millennium Cohort Study (UK). Using cross-lagged panel analyses, we found that emotional and behavioral self-regulation were separate and stable constructs. In addition, both emotional and behavioral self-regulation had positive cross-lagged effects from ages 3 to 7. At an early developmental stage (ages 3 to 5), emotional regulation affected behavioral regulation more strongly than later developmental stages. However, the difference between the reciprocal effects was small from ages 5 to 7. Moreover, behavioral regulation during the third year of primary education (age 7) had a substantial and positive effect on teachers' evaluations of educational achievement during the last year of primary school (age 11). In contrast, emotional self-regulation only had a small indirect and positive effect via behavioral self-regulation. The current study suggests the structure of self-regulation was multidimensional and its facets are mutually dependent in the child's development. In order to gain a complete picture of the development of self-regulation and its effect on educational achievement, the facets emotional and behavioral regulation should both be studied in concert.

Using data from a longitudinal German large-scale study and structural equation modeling, this study investigated the effects of different dimensions of the early home learning environment (HLE) as well as the effect of language-related preschool quality at the age of 3 to 5 years on students' later school-relevant language proficiency (as indicated by their school-relevant listening comprehension) in primary school (N = 316; Mage in months at Grade 1 = 88.22, SD = 3.98). Results show significant direct effects of both the book exposure at home as well as of the language and literacy-related preschool quality on later school-relevant language proficiency, even when controlling for earlier language skills at preschool entry (age 3/4) and other relevant child (working memory, nonverbal cognitive abilities) and family-related (socioeconomic status) factors. Using child vocabulary and grammar at age 5/6 as mediational variables, the effect of the informal HLE was partially mediated through students' receptive grammar skills. Our results underline the importance of early stimulating home and preschool literacy environments for students' school-relevant language proficiency at the start of primary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Findings: This study investigated the long-term interrelations among children's language competencies, their home literacy environment (HLE), and 3 aspects of socioemotional development from ages 3 to 8, controlling for characteristics of the child and family. For this sample of 547 typically developing German children, parents and teachers reported on cooperative behavior, physical aggression, and emotional self-regulation. Language was assessed using established test instruments. HLE was operationalized by the number of books in the household, the frequency of shared book reading, and an observation during shared book reading. Path analyses supported effects of language and HLE at age 3 on all 3 indicators of socioemotional development over the 5-year period. An additional mediational analysis revealed different patterns of results depending on the aspect of socioemotional competency under study. Although the effect of early language and HLE at age 3 on cooperative and (low) aggressive behavior at age 8 was partially mediated by language at age 5, children's early language at age 3 was the best predictor of the development of emotional self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Findings identify a rich HLE and proper language skills as protective factors for socioemotional development in not-at-risk children; these factors should be further established in social skills training.

Establishing local coherence relations is central to text comprehension. Positive-causal coherence relations link a cause and its consequence, whereas negative-causal coherence relations add a contrastive meaning (negation) to the causal link. According to the cumulative cognitive complexity approach, negative-causal coherence relations are cognitively more complex than positive-causal ones. Therefore, they require greater cognitive effort during text comprehension and are acquired later in language development. The present cross-sectional study tested these predictions for German primary school children from Grades 1 to 4 and adults in reading and listening comprehension. Accuracy data in a semantic verification task support the predictions of the cumulative cognitive complexity approach. Negative-causal coherence relations are cognitively more demanding than positive-causal ones. Moreover, our findings indicate that children's comprehension of negative-causal coherence relations continues to develop throughout the course of primary school. Findings are discussed with respect to the generalizability of the cumulative cognitive complexity approach to German.

If children fail to understand test instructions, measurements of their competence may be unfair and invalid. This is especially relevant for students with special educational needs (SEN) because they face greater challenges in comprehending instructions. Two interventions were designed to facilitate the comprehension of test requirements by presenting intensified instructions and to enhance students' attention by engaging them in physical activity before receiving the test instructions. Three-hundred forty-eight students with SEN aged 8-12 years were randomly assigned to an experimental condition or a control group. Even after controlling for relevant variables (reading speed, basic cognitive skills), students participating in the interventions performed better in a reading test than controls. As hypothesized, the intensified test instructions reduced the number of responses that were not compliant with instructions. In conclusion, this study shows the importance of adapting test instructions for students with SEN, and it proposes interventions that can be implemented in other assessments.

This study explored whether the directionality of the relation between majority language and various facets of socioemotional development (three to 5 years old) differs between children with different language backgrounds. 12,951 children (49% girls; 85% White, 6% Pakistani and Bangladeshi, 3% Black, 3% Mix, 2% Indian) from the British Millennium Cohort Study (2001–2006) were included in two‐time‐point cross‐lagged analyses. Models controlling for important covariates found a bidirectional association for monolinguals (βs =.05, −.07, −.04), a unidirectional effect of majority language on socioemotional difficulties for dual language learners (DLLs) speaking English and minority language(s) at home (β =.14), and a unidirectional effect of socioemotional strength on majority language for DLLs speaking only minority language(s) at home (β = −.17). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper was written under the auspices of the interdisciplinary research group "Educational Processes, Competence Development, and Selection Decisions at Preschool and Primary School Age (BiKS)" (FOR 543), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The surveys were conceptualised and supervised as part of the developmental psychology sub-project (headed by S. Weinert) and the primary education sub-project (headed by H.-G. Roßbach). We would like to thank the German Research Foundation for funding the research group and the participating children, parents, early years educators, teachers, assistants, and members of staff for their commitment and cooperation.