FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS AS PREDICTORS OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN CHICANO CHILDREN'S EMERGENT SCHOOL READINESS

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study of normal young children in 100 two‐parent Chicano households of widely varied socioeconomic levels assessed the ability of selected family sociodemographic and intellectual characteristics to predict individual differences in the children's performance on a measure of emergent school readiness. Data were collected longitudinally in the home at ages 30, 42, and 48 months. Emergent school readiness was measured using the Preschool Inventory, administered at each of the last two longitudinal points. The family characteristics examined were (a) specific sociodemographic variables (household financial income, mother's and father's schooling attainment levels, occupational status, and the family size, sibling constellation, and home language) and (b) the mother's and father's performance on the Culture Fair Intelligence Test. Contemporaneous and time‐lagged zero‐order and partial correlations and multiple regressions assessed the unique, shared, and shifting strengths of these hypothesized family predictors of child performance. Together these predictors accounted for 50% of the variance in child performance.