Effortful control and adaptive functioning of homeless children: Variable-focused and person-focused analyses

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Abstract

Homeless children show significant developmental delays across major domains of adaptation, yet research on protective processes that may contribute to resilient adaptation in this highly disadvantaged group of children is extremely rare. This study examined the role of effortful control for adaption in 58 homeless children, ages 5–6, during their transition to school. Effortful control skills were assessed using children's performance on four standard laboratory tasks. Adaptive functioning was assessed by teacher report of academic competence, peer competence, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Variable-focused and person-focused results indicate that effortful control may be an important marker of school readiness and resilience. Controlling for child IQ, parenting quality, and socio-demographic risks, effortful control emerged as the most significant predictor of all four salient developmental domains of adaptation as well as of resilient status of homeless children. Implications of these findings are discussed for future research and design of interventions.

Introduction

Twenty years of research on homeless children and families has produced a substantial body of literature showing that homeless children living in poverty are at a very high risk for delays in multiple domains of adaptive functioning, including academic, social, emotional, and behavioral problems (Buckner, 2008, Buckner et al., 1999, Haber and Toro, 2004, Masten, 1992, Masten et al., 1993, Rafferty and Shinn, 1991). In addition to the cumulative risks associated with poverty, such as traumatic life experiences, parental psychopathology, and lack of support systems (Luthar, 1999, McLoyd et al., 2006), homeless children face specific threats to development from residential instability and broken bonds with potentially positive sources of security and opportunity (Rafferty et al., 2004, Rog & Buckner, 2007). However, recent studies have demonstrated that homeless children are not a homogenous group (Huntington et al., 2008, Obradović et al., 2009). Evidence of positive adaptation in homeless children, even at very high levels of risk, suggests that there is significant variability in the promotive and protective factors influencing the lives of these children. Understanding the processes that support successful adaptation in children exposed to homelessness and its attendant risks are important for preventive intervention. And yet, research on positive processes that contribute to resilient adaption in this highly disadvantaged group of children is rare. The current study was designed to fill this gap by examining how effortful control abilities relate to multiple domains of adaptive functioning in 5 and 6-year-old homeless children during their transition to school.

Homeless children fall at the high end of the risk continuum of children living in poverty, showing significant developmental delays across the major domains of adaptation. Studies of academic success have found that a large majority of homeless children show severe academic achievement delays and perform below grade level norms (Masten et al., 1997, Rubin et al., 1996, Zima et al., 1994). Masten et al. (1993) found that a significantly higher percentage of homeless children have clinical levels of social problems when compared to national norms. Moreover, homeless children show elevated levels of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, often above clinical thresholds (Masten et al., 1997).

Further, many studies have shown that homeless children present a unique risk group that is distinct from the larger group of children living in poverty. When compared to economically disadvantaged children living at home, homeless children show lower levels of literacy and arithmetic skills (Rubin et al., 1996, Obradović et al., 2009), are more likely to report having no close friends (Masten et al., 1997), and are at higher risk for clinical levels of psychopathology (Masten et al., 1993, Rescorla et al., 1991, Vostanis et al., 1997). These differences often remain after controlling for important confounds, such as race, social class, and family composition (Rubin et al., 1996).

Nevertheless, housing status has been an inconsistent predictor of adaptation (Buckner, 2008). Homeless children tend to face higher levels of adversity exposure, and housing status per se might not be the most important marker of risk. For example, Buckner et al. (1999) found that housing status predicted internalizing symptoms but not externalizing symptoms, controlling for the significant contribution of age, ethnicity, maternal distress, stressful life events, and history of abuse. However, homeless children had significantly higher levels of stressful life events and history of sexual abuse. Similarly, Masten et al. (1993) reported that housing status did not predict overall symptom levels over and above parental distress, demographic risk, and negative life events, but homeless children on average were exposed to nearly twice as many negative life events. In a recent review of studies on homeless children, Buckner (2008) argued that inconsistencies in the literature may be largely due to historical, contextual, and policy-related factors. For example, he suggests that recent studies reveal fewer differences between homeless and low-income, housed children in part due to better social policies and services currently in place for homeless families that did not exist in the 1980s. More importantly, Buckner (2008) advised that additional studies examining differences between homeless and housed children may not meaningfully advance our understanding of what can improve homeless children's adaption.

While homelessness presents a marker of high cumulative risk, there are hints of considerable variation in the adaptation of homeless children, with some children showing signs of positive development (Obradović et al., 2009). However, little is known about the protective factors that may account for resilient functioning among homeless children. In one of the few studies focused on protective factors, Masten and colleagues identified closeness of the parent–child relationship and parental involvement in education as significant predictors of homeless children’s school success (Masten and Sesma, 1999, Milotis et al., 1999). More research is needed to identify other protective processes that contribute to the variability of adaption in homeless children and to differentiate subgroups of children who do well despite adversity.

As Buckner (2008) points out, the next generation of studies on homeless children needs to have clear implications for policy and intervention program designs. One key focus of this research should be early childhood, as developmental delays appear to emerge early and persist over time. In a recent study of achievement trajectories in a large urban school district, homeless and highly mobile students showed lower initial levels of achievement than low-income classmates who were more stably housed as early as second grade, controlling for sex, ethnicity, English language proficiency, and attendance (Obradović et al., 2009). Moreover, this gap persisted over three school years, underscoring the importance of examining factors that may prevent early school failures in homeless children. School entry may present a particularly vulnerable time for homeless children, as residential instability may jeopardize the consistency of their educational experiences and interfere with the formation of new peer groups.

Scientists examining processes that promote successful development in high-risk children have emphasized the importance of investigating systems that (a) bridge multiple levels of analysis, (b) are implicated in the salient domains of adaptation, and (c) are amenable to change (Luthar, 2006, Masten and Obradović, 2006). One system that meets all three criteria is effortful control, a set of executive functions aimed at the intentional, internal manipulation of one's attention and behavior. Effortful control is frequently defined as the ability to inhibit a dominant response in order to execute a subdominant response (Rothbart & Bates, 1998). It includes skills such as inhibitory control, attention shifting, and attention focusing. Together, these abilities play an important role in achieving the developmental tasks of the school years: learning, forming friendships, and following the rules of classroom and society.

Effortful control has been linked to multiple domains of adaptive functioning. Recent studies show the significant influence of attention regulation and inhibitory control on early academic competence, such as reading and math achievement in preschoolers and kindergarteners (Blair and Razza, 2007, Howse et al., 2003, Senn et al., 2004). Effortful control has also been linked to social competence in community samples of 8 to 12-year-olds (Lengua, 2002, Lengua, 2003) and preschool children (Lengua, Honorado, & Bush, 2007). Further, a robust relation has been documented between effortful control skills and externalizing behavior problems in preschoolers (Eisenberg et al., 1997, Kochanska and Knaack, 2003, Olson et al., 2005), and this relation persists even when the high longitudinal stability and concurrent intercorrelations of both constructs are taken into account (Valiente et al., 2003, Eisenberg et al., 2004). Initial levels as well as improvements in effortful control skills have been found to predict short-term changes in externalizing and internalizing behavior problems (Eisenberg et al., 2005, Riggs et al., 2003). Together, these studies suggest that in community samples effortful control can be a powerful correlate and predictor of adaptation across the salient developmental domains of childhood. However, most of the research on effortful control and adaptive functioning has focused on Caucasian, middle-class samples (Eisenberg, Hofer, & Vaughan, 2007).

Development of effortful control is shaped by both biological and environmental factors (Eisenberg et al., 2003, NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2005, Rothbart et al., 2007, Tarullo et al., 2009). Recent studies suggest that risk and adversity exposure significantly undermine effortful control. Economically disadvantaged 5 to 7-year-olds performed significantly worse on attention regulation and attention shifting tasks than their more affluent age-mates (Howse et al., 2003, Mezzacappa, 2004). In a community sample of preschoolers, indices of poverty, mobility, and family problems were related to lower performance on effortful control tasks, and a cumulative index of demographic and psychosocial risks negatively predicted 6-month change in effortful control (Lengua et al., 2007). Similarly, Li-Grining (2007) reported that socio-demographic and residential risks negatively predicted effortful control in low-income preschoolers.

Given that risk and adversity exposure undermine effortful control skills, it is surprising that few studies have examined how effortful control contributes to adaptive functioning in at-risk children. In the Head Start sample, Blair and colleagues found some evidence of relation between performance on effortful control tasks and teacher report of classroom behaviors (Blair et al., 2005, Blair and Peters, 2003). In another study, effortful control tasks predicted math and literacy skills in kindergarten (Blair & Razza, 2007). Although these studies provide initial evidence that effortful control is important for the adaptation of economically disadvantaged children, the researchers did not control for family sources of risk and resources. Moreover, homeless children living in an emergency shelter tend to face higher levels of adversity than low-income housed children, which may further undermine the association between effortful control and adaptation.

One published study to date has examined self-regulation in children living in extreme poverty and exposed to high adversity, including homelessness. Buckner, Mezzacappa, and Beardslee (2003) showed that self-regulation differentiated groups of children who showed resilient and maladaptive adaptation and was also a significant predictor of a continuous measure of resilience, controlling for important confounds such as negative life events, chronic strains, abuse history, IQ, self-esteem, parental monitoring, and emotional support. While this study established the importance of studying self-regulation in highly disadvantaged children, the self-regulation construct combined ratings of effortful control skills with measures of reactivity, motivation, and emotion regulation; thus, the distinct contributions of specific elements were not evident. Moreover, children's ages varied considerably from 8 to 17 years, making it difficult to assess the effects of effortful control in early childhood, especially during the transition to school.

The current study was designed to examine the variability of functioning within the homeless children population (rather than comparing it to low-income housed children) and to identify processes that promote homeless children’s positive adaptation. It aims to extend the findings of Buckner and colleagues (2003) by testing the effect of effortful control skills, as measured by laboratory tasks, on various domains of adaptation during an important developmental transition period. At age 5 to 6, children show significant developmental improvements in effortful control, just as they begin to face new challenges in the school environment. As advocated by Buckner (2008), this study incorporated both variable-focused and person-focused analytic approaches. The first goal was to examine the separate relations between effortful control and four salient developmental domains of adaption. The second goal was to examine whether effortful control identifies a group of children who demonstrate resilience across all four domains of adaptation, as indexed by average or better functioning. In accordance with existing literature, effortful control was expected to relate to indices of academic achievement, peer competence, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and to differentiate resilient from maladaptive homeless children. All analyses were tested controlling for sex and age. In addition, the unique effects of effortful control were examined over and above child IQ, parenting quality, and family socio-demographic risks, three key correlates of adaptation among both low- and high-risk samples.

Section snippets

Participants and procedures

Participants for this study were recruited from one of the largest homeless shelters in the upper Midwest. Children in this shelter represent approximately 40% of all children living in homeless shelters who enroll at any point during the school year in the urban public school district in which it is located. Families with children who were scheduled to enter kindergarten or first grade in the fall of 2006 were invited to participate in the study. Due to the nature of the assessments, families

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 presents range, mean, and standard deviation for all variables in the study. Effortful control tasks captured considerable variability of effortful control skills in homeless children. Only 26% of children passed the Simon Says task by correctly performing at least 80% of the inhibitory trials. On other hand, 72% and 67% of children correctly completed at least 80% of trials during the Peg-tapping and Stroop tasks, respectively. In addition, 76% of children passed the DCCS task by

Discussion

This study identifies effortful control skills as an important potential indicator of adaptation and school readiness among children who are homeless. Performance on effortful control tasks was significantly related to school adjustment across four of the most salient childhood domains of adaptation, as judged by the teacher, an independent observer of the child's functioning. Children's effortful control emerged as a unique predictor of early academic success, which can have long lasting

Conclusions

The current study showed that effortful control skills may promote resilience processes in homeless children during their transition to school, as performance on effortful control tasks predicted achievement of early childhood salient developmental tasks over and above other important risk and protective factors. With recent studies demonstrating plasticity of effortful control skills in community samples, it is imperative to investigate the malleability of these skills in homeless children.

Acknowledgments

This study is based on a doctoral dissertation and was supported by a National Institute of Mental Health NRSA pre-doctoral training grant award to the author and by research awards to Ann S. Masten from the Center on Urban and Regional Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute and a Distinguished McKnight University Professorship, both at the University of Minnesota. I want to express my deep appreciation to the children and their families for participating in this project. I would like to

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