Shared Reading and Risk of Social-Emotional Problems

Early Literacy Developmental Activities and Pre-Kindergarten Learning Skills in the Context of Childhood Adversity

OBJECTIVE

School readiness (SR) encompasses a wide range of skills that affect children's ability to succeed in school and later in life. Shared reading is an important strategy that assists children in gaining SR skills, whereas adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) negatively affect a child's SR. This study assessed if early literacy developmental activities (shared reading, singing, or storytelling) were associated with improved SR among children with and without ACEs.

METHODS

2020-2021 National Survey of Children's Health data were used for analysis. We identified children aged 3-5 years to assess their exposure to ACEs, participation in reading/storytelling/singing, and overall SR.

RESULTS

In a sample of 17,545 children, 29% of children were exposed to one or more ACEs. Seventy-seven percent of children with no ACEs received daily early literacy developmental activities compared to 23% of children who experienced any ACE. On ordinal logistic regression, daily early literacy developmental activities were associated with 56% greater odds of higher SR among children not exposed to ACEs (OR: 1.56; 95% CI: 1.29, 1.88; P < .01). Among children exposed to ACEs, daily early literacy developmental activities were also associated with higher SR (OR: 1.50; 95% CI: 1.06, 2.13; P = .02).

CONCLUSIONS

Shared reading, storytelling, and singing are associated with improved SR in both children who have and have not been exposed to ACEs. However, children exposed to ACEs had fewer experiences with early literacy developmental activities. Future efforts should address the barriers that limit shared reading, singing, or storytelling for children exposed to ACEs.

Early Correlates of School Readiness Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Linking Health and School Data

Importance

Many known correlates of kindergarten readiness are captured in developmental and social screenings in primary care; little is known about how primary care data predicts school readiness.

Objective

To identify early Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) correlates by linking electronic health record (EHR) data with school district KRA data and to examine potential outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic using KRA scores between 2018 and 2021.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This was a retrospective cohort study linking a large primary care practice (PCP) with school assessment data. Linkage used patient name, date of birth, and address. The setting was an urban school district and PCP affiliated with an academic medical center. Students had a KRA score from fall of 2018, 2019, or 2021 (no 2020 KRA due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and at least 1 prior well-child visit at the PCP.

Exposures

Exposures included year KRA administered, reported child race and ethnicity, child sex, interpreter for medical visits, child ever failed Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) 18 to 54 months, ever rarely read to, Medicaid status, food insecurity, housing insecurity, problems with benefits, and caregiver depressive symptoms.

Main Outcomes and Measures

KRA score (continuous), with a possible range of 0 to 300 (passing score = 270).

Results

A total of 3204 PCP patients (mean [SD] age, 67 [4] months; 1612 male [50.3%]; 2642 Black [82.5%]; 94 Hispanic [2.9%]; 244 White [7.6%]) were matched to their KRA score. Mean (SD) KRA scores were significantly lower in 2021 (mean [SD], 260.0 [13.0]; 214 of 998 [21.4%]) compared with 2019 (mean [SD], 262.7 [13.5]; 317 of 1114 [28.5%]) and 2018 (mean [SD], 263.5 [13.6]; 351 of 1092 [32.1%]), a pattern mirrored in the larger school district. In the linear regression final model (n = 2883), the following binary variables significantly lowered the child's KRA score (points lowered [95% CI]) below a mean passing score of 270.8: child ever failed ASQ after 18 months (-6.7; 95% CI, -7.7 to -5.6), Medicaid insured (-5.7; 95% CI, -9.0 to -2.3), Hispanic ethnicity (-3.8; 95% CI, -6.9 to -0.6), requires interpreter (-3.6; 95% CI, -7.1 to -0.1), 2021 year (-3.5; 95% CI, -4.7 to -2.3), male sex (-2.7; 95% CI, -3.7 to -1.8), ever rarely read to (-1.5; 95% CI, -2.6 to -0.4), and food insecurity (-1.2; 95% CI, -2.4 to -0.1). Race, caregiver depression, housing insecurity, and problems receiving benefits were not associated with KRA scores in final model.

Conclusions and Relevance

Findings of this cohort study suggest a deleterious association of the COVID-19 pandemic with early learning and development. There may be potential for PCPs and school districts to collaborate to identify and mitigate risks much earlier.

Early-initiated childhood reading for pleasure: associations with better cognitive performance, mental well-being and brain structure in young adolescence

BACKGROUND

Childhood is a crucial neurodevelopmental period. We investigated whether childhood reading for pleasure (RfP) was related to young adolescent assessments of cognition, mental health, and brain structure.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional and longitudinal study in a large-scale US national cohort (10 000 + young adolescents), using the well-established linear mixed model and structural equation methods for twin study, longitudinal and mediation analyses. A 2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis for potential causal inference was also performed. Important factors including socio-economic status were controlled.

RESULTS

Early-initiated long-standing childhood RfP (early RfP) was highly positively correlated with performance on cognitive tests and significantly negatively correlated with mental health problem scores of young adolescents. These participants with higher early RfP scores exhibited moderately larger total brain cortical areas and volumes, with increased regions including the temporal, frontal, insula, supramarginal; left angular, para-hippocampal; right middle-occipital, anterior-cingulate, orbital areas; and subcortical ventral-diencephalon and thalamus. These brain structures were significantly related to their cognitive and mental health scores, and displayed significant mediation effects. Early RfP was longitudinally associated with higher crystallized cognition and lower attention symptoms at follow-up. Approximately 12 h/week of youth regular RfP was cognitively optimal. We further observed a moderately significant heritability of early RfP, with considerable contribution from environments. MR analysis revealed beneficial causal associations of early RfP with adult cognitive performance and left superior temporal structure.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings, for the first time, revealed the important relationships of early RfP with subsequent brain and cognitive development and mental well-being.

Multifaceted determinants of social-emotional problems in preschool children in Sweden: An ecological systems theory approach

Social-emotional problems occurring early in life can place children at future risk of adverse health, social and economic outcomes. Determinants of social-emotional problems are multi-layered and originate from different contexts surrounding children, though few studies consider them simultaneously. We adopted a holistic approach by using Bronfenbrenner's process-person-context-time model as a structuring device. We aimed to assess what characteristics of families and children from pregnancy, over birth, and up to 3 years of age are associated with social-emotional problems in boys and girls. This study used regional data from the Salut Programme, a universal health promotion programme implemented in Antenatal and Child Health Care, and data from national Swedish registers. The study population included 6033 3-year-olds and their parents during the period 2010-2018. Distinct logistic regression models for boys and girls were used to assess associations between the family social context, parents' lifestyle, parent's mental health, children's birth characteristics, and indicators of proximal processes (the independent variables); and children's social-emotional problems as measured by the parent-completed Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional between 33 and 41 months of age (the outcome). Overall, a less favourable family social context, detrimental lifestyle of the parents during pregnancy, and parents' mental illness from pregnancy onwards were associated with higher odds of social-emotional problems in 3-year-olds. Higher screentime and infrequent shared book-reading were associated with higher odds of social-emotional problems. The multifaceted determinants of children's social-emotional problems imply that many diverse targets for intervention exist. Additionally, this study suggests that Bronfenbrenner's process-person-context-time theoretical framework could be relevant for public health research and policy.