Testing impact on low-income childrens' outcomes, grade 3-5: 5-yr follow-up

描述（由申请人提供）：与贫困相关的风险可能严重危及低收入家庭儿童在学校学习的机会。在芝加哥等城市社区，多达23%的低收入儿童在入学前表现出严重的行为问题，而在芝加哥公立学校就读的儿童中，24%的儿童在三年级时面临学业风险（Li-Grining, Votruba-Drzal, Bachman, & Chase-Lansdale, 2006; Raver, 2002）。幼儿似乎在很大程度上得不到社区精神卫生服务，在入学前接受服务的儿童不到1% （Yoshikawa & Knitzer, 1997）。拟议研究计划的一个中心目标是检查旨在解决这些与贫困有关的差异的以课堂为基础的干预措施的长期影响。这项研究计划旨在为最初名为“情绪问题”的项目（更名为芝加哥入学准备项目，简称CSRP）寻求新的支持。该项目最初于2003-2008年由机构间学校准备联合会资助。采用聚类随机对照试验（RCT）设计，CSRP实施了针对启智教室的多成分干预。我们研究的最新证据表明，CSRP的普遍和有针对性的服务为有行为困难的儿童以及那些表现出更强自我调节能力的儿童提供了关键的调节支持。采用聚类随机设计，CSRP结果表明，与参加对照组分配项目的儿童相比，参加治疗分配项目的儿童在学业和社会情感方面表现出显著的进步，效应值范围为d = 0.32至d = 0.89。在建议的随访研究中，采用纵向、双队列设计，将从多个记者（包括家长、教师和儿童的学校记录）中收集6波数据收集。我们的假设是，在学前教育中提供CSRP服务对低收入、少数民族儿童具有长期的社会情感和教育效益，因为他们在小学阶段进行了关键的、生态显著的过渡。具体来说，在我们当前奖项的最后一年，我们目前正在测试学前干预可能使儿童受益的方法，因为他们从生态上显着过渡到正式的学校环境，这带来了更多的行为和学术挑战（幼儿园和一年级）。可以说，三年级和五年级代表了csrp入学儿童发展过渡的下一组生态突出点，向他们提出了一系列新的行为和学术要求，如更大的班级规模，高风险的标准化测试，初中或初中的分班决定（huston&ripke, 2006）。在第一组和第二组中，大多数参加csrp的孩子将在2010年春季或2011年春季完成他们的三年级学业。拟议的研究计划旨在利用这一“机会之窗”，测试在学前教育中提供的CSRP干预服务是否在帮助儿童成功应对这些阶段突出的行为和学业需求方面具有长期效益。在实现这一目标的过程中，该项目将测试可在经济状况严重不利的社会环境中实施的预防性干预措施的功效，从而为NIH的公共卫生使命作出贡献。我们也希望通过了解可能将干预与儿童结果联系起来的中介机制，以及干预对不同儿童群体的相似或不同的方式，为预防研究做出贡献。此外，我们的研究结果可能有助于预防科学和公共卫生研究领域，通过检查当项目和家庭参与干预的倾向被统计考虑时，对项目影响的估计可能会大大增加。公共卫生相关性：最近的分析表明，芝加哥入学准备项目是一个多组成部分的、以课堂为基础的干预，通过提高低收入儿童的入学准备，给他们带来了明显的好处。我们提出的5年随访研究测试了CSRP干预的这些益处是否从学前班持续到小学早期。修订后的研究计划建议测试CSRP是否对儿童的适应和早期学习有显著的好处（通过标准化测试、学校记录和家长和老师的报告来衡量）。它有助于对儿童早期贫困和预防性干预的研究领域不断扩大，并阐明儿童服务机构为促进儿童的行为健康和学业成功可采取的步骤。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Poverty-related risks may seriously jeopardize low-income children's opportunities for learning in school contexts. As many as 23% of low-income children in urban communities such as Chicago exhibit high levels of behavioral problems prior to school entry, and 24% of children enrolled in Chicago's public schools are at academic risk by 3rd grade (Li-Grining, Votruba-Drzal, Bachman, & Chase-Lansdale, 2006; Raver, 2002). Young children appear to be substantially underserved by community mental health services, with less than 1% of children receiving services prior to school entry (Yoshikawa & Knitzer, 1997). A central aim of the proposed plan of research is to examine the long-term impact of a classroom-based intervention designed to address these poverty-related disparities. This proposed plan of research seeks renewal of support for a project initially entitled "Emotions Matter" (renamed the Chicago School Readiness Project, or CSRP). The project was initially funded from 2003-2008 by the Inter-Agency Consortium on School Readiness. Using a clustered randomized control trial (or RCT) design, CSRP implemented a multi-component intervention targeting Head Start classrooms. Recent evidence from our research suggests that CSRP's universal and targeted services provided key regulatory support to children having behavioral difficulty as well as to those children demonstrating greater self-regulatory competence. Using a clustered, randomized design, CSRP results suggest that children in treatment-assigned programs showed significant academic and socioemotional gains as compared to their counterparts attending control-group assigned programs, with effect sizes ranging from d = .32 to d = .89. In the proposed follow-up study using a longitudinal, 2- cohort design, data will be collected from multiple reporters (including parents, teachers, and children's school records) across 6 waves of data collection. Our hypothesis is that the delivery of CSRP services in preschool has long-term social-emotional, and educational benefits for low-income, ethnic minority children as they make key, ecologically-salient transitions through elementary school. Specifically, in our final year of our current award, we are currently testing ways that preschool intervention may benefit children as they make the ecologically salient transitions into formal school contexts that pose increased behavioral and academic challenges (kindergarten and 1st grade). The 3rd and 5th grades arguably represent the next set of ecologically-salient points of developmental transition for CSRP-enrolled children, presenting them with a new set of behavioral and academic demands such as larger class size, high-stakes standardized testing, and placement decisions for middle or junior high school (Huston & Ripke, 2006). Most CSRP-enrolled children in cohorts 1 and 2 will be completing their 3rd grade year either in spring, 2010 or spring, 2011. The proposed plan of research aims to capitalize on this "window of opportunity," testing whether CSRP intervention services delivered in preschool have long-term benefit in helping children to successfully navigate these stage-salient behavioral and academic demands. In pursuing this aim, this project will test the efficacy of preventive interventions that can be implemented in social contexts of significant economic disadvantage, contributing to the public health mission of the NIH. We also hope to contribute to prevention research by understanding mediating mechanisms that may link intervention with children's outcomes and the ways that intervention may work similarly or differently for different groups of children. In addition, our findings are likely to contribute to fields of prevention science and public health research by examining ways that estimates of program impact may be substantially larger when programs' and families' propensities to participate in intervention are statistically taken into account. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Recent analyses suggest that the Chicago School Readiness Project, a multi-component, classroom-based intervention, confers clear benefits to young, low-income children by improving their school readiness. Our proposed 5-year follow-up study tests whether these benefits of the CSRP intervention are sustained from preschool through early elementary school. The revised plan of research proposes to test whether CSRP has a significant benefit for children's adjustment and early learning (as measured by standardized tests, school records, and reports from parents and teachers). It contributes to a growing area of research on poverty and preventive intervention in early childhood and sheds light on the steps that child-serving agencies can take to foster children's behavioral health and school success.