2008 — 2013 |
Gewirtz, Abigail Long, Jeffrey Masten, Ann [⬀] Gunnar, Megan (co-PI) [⬀] Zelazo, Philip (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Executive Function in Learning and School Success @ University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Faced with persisting disparities in educational achievement, there is a pressing need to understand processes that promote early school success in children at risk for academic problems. Promising evidence indicates that executive function (EF) skills play a central role in successful transitions to school among young children, especially disadvantaged children. EF skills are those involved in cognitive self-control of behavior, including directing and shifting attention, resisting distractions, and inhibiting impulses. Children with good EF skills fare better in the school context, both in terms of learning and social competence. There is also evidence that EF can be improved through strategic intervention. This project will examine the role of EF skills in the school success of young homeless/highly mobile students who represent a substantial proportion of the low-income children at highest risk for academic problems in urban school districts. Chronic adversities associated with poverty and mobility may alter physiological stress response systems and undermine the early development of neural systems associated with EF. As a result, children may face the challenges of school and life with poor EF skills, as well as difficulties regulating stress. Nonetheless, some children growing up in adversity succeed in school, and their resilience may be related to protections afforded by good parenting and the development of effective stress regulation and EF skills. To examine the role of EF in school success among homeless/highly mobile children, this study will assess children entering kindergarten from shelters for homeless families and follow their adjustment during this important school year. Through assessments of child, parent, and parent-child interactions, this study will test the connections of family adversity, risk, and parenting to EF skills, stress regulation, and success in school. Cortisol, a stress hormone, will be sampled from the children's saliva to assess stress reactivity. School outcomes will be assessed through teacher reports and school records of standardized tests and attendance. Better EF skills are expected in children with lower family risk, better parenting, and good stress regulation, who consequently will do well in school. EF skills are expected to show protective effects for learning and social adjustment in these high-risk children.
Results are expected to inform developmental theory on EF, risk and resilience, and the design of educational programs and interventions to address achievement disparities and promote early school success in disadvantaged children. The project will provide insights into processes that may enhance or inhibit learning and adaptation in a context of high adversity and change. Results will elucidate how EF skills may facilitate successful transitions to school in an under-studied population of low-income, highly mobile children whose success may prove crucial to closing achievement gaps in American education.
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0.915 |
2010 — 2014 |
Gewirtz, Abigail |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Effectiveness of a Web-Enhanced Parenting Program For Military Families @ University of Minnesota
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Effectiveness of a web-enhanced parenting program for military families. The overarching goal of this study is to advance research on family-based substance use prevention for reintegrating OEF/OIF personnel by examining whether an Oregon Parent Management Training (PMTO) prevention intervention, enhanced with e-technology and adapted for combat-deployed families'needs, will reduce risk behaviors associated with youth substance use by improving parenting, child, and parent adjustment. Combat deployment and related challenges are family stressors, associated with more negative parent-child interactions, ineffective and coercive parenting practices and lowered parent satisfaction (e.g. Glenn et al., 2002). Disrupted parenting practices are predictors of risk for child adjustment difficulties that are precursors to youth substance use, including behavior problems, school failure, deviant peer association, and depression (Patterson &Fisher, 2002). These child adjustment problems can contribute to continuing parental stress, increasing parental distress, and further disrupting parenting (DeGarmo &Forgatch, 2004). Despite this, no parenting interventions have been empirically tested for reintegrating military families deployed to OEF/OIF. PMTO is a well-established empirically supported intervention targeting highly stressed parents that applies Social Interaction Learning theory (SIL, Patterson, Chamberlain &Reid, 1982). SIL posits that deployment and related stressors would be expected to impair social interactional patterns, leading to increases in coercion, decrements in positive parenting, and increased risk for child maladjustment. PMTO interventions have demonstrated efficacy and effectiveness, showing reductions in behavior problems that are precursors to substance use, actual substance use, and internalizing problems, as well as increases in social competence and school adjustment (for a comprehensive overview see Forgatch &Patterson, in press). While PMTO interventions have been implemented in multiple diverse contexts no study to date has adapted and examined PMTO among military populations. The proposed project will test the first combined group-online prevention program for reintegrating parents - "ADAPT: After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools". We will conduct a randomized effectiveness trial of the program, compared with a 'services as usual'(tip sheet) comparison group among 400 military families identified in the RFA as a special population: reintegrating Army National Guard ARNG) parents. The ADAPT program will be tested for usability and feasibility in the first year. Subsequently, 400 families will be recruited through a partnership with the Minnesota ARNG, and randomly assigned to ADAPT, or services-as-usual. Multiple-method, multi-informant measures will be gathered over four time points at baseline, 6, 12, and 24 months following baseline, to examine intervention effects on parenting, child adjustment (behaviors associated with youth substance use), and parental adjustment, as well as satisfaction. Dosage (for group and web components) and fidelity of intervention implementation will be measured and examined as putative moderators of intervention outcomes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Effectiveness of a web-enhanced parenting program for military families. The goal of this study is to further research on effective substance use prevention for military families, by examining whether an Oregon Parent Management Training (PMTO) prevention program, enhanced with e-technology and adapted for combat- deployed families'needs, will reduce risk behaviors associated with youth substance use by improving parenting, child, and parent adjustment. The program's feasibility and acceptability will be examined, and subsequently a randomized controlled trial of the 14-week group program and web enhancement will be conducted with 400 families from the Minnesota Army National Guard. Families with 6-12 year old children will be followed over 2 years to examine program effects.
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0.915 |