Abstract
ABSTRACT Research Findings: This study aimed to investigate the developmental path of social skills in early childhood, the associated predictors, and its impact on later school performance. This prospective longitudinal study included 2,121 children, ages 3–5 at baseline, from the general population in a mid-sized Swedish municipality. Results show both stability and change in social skills. Stable low social skills increased the risk for poor school performance, while stable high social skills increased the chance for good school performance in primary school. With some notable gender differences, both individual and family factors were significant predictors of stable low and stable high paths of social skills during early childhood. Practice or Policy: Whether the goal is to improve children’s social skills or their performance in school, this study provides important clues for prevention. We identified several potential targets for interventions to promote early social skills development, which may in turn promote positive school performance. It is also notable that there seem to be gender differences in which factors are important, indicating the need for gender-differentiated interventions.
Highlights
Children’s ability to interact positively and adequately with other people has been shown to be a key factor for positive adjustment in a broad sense and over time, already from an early age (e.g., Domitrovich et al, 2017)
To answer the first question of the study, whether stability and/or change in social skills could be identified throughout early childhood, the sample was divided into four groups using an arbitrary cutoff of −.50 standard deviation for “Low social skills”, and above .50 standard deviation for “High social skills” at both baseline and the 2-year follow-up
The groups were: Stable low social skills including 238 children (28% girls), Decreasing social skills including 69 children (51% girls), Increasing social skills including 50 (54% girls) children, and Stable high social skills including 261 children (63% girls). These results suggest that both stability and change occur in the development of social skills in early childhood
Summary
Children’s ability to interact positively and adequately with other people has been shown to be a key factor for positive adjustment in a broad sense and over time, already from an early age (e.g., Domitrovich et al, 2017). Social skills at a young age have been found to be related to school adjustment in childhood and adolescence, as well as work competence in adulthood (e.g., Bornstein et al, 2010; Masten et al, 2010), and interven tions focusing on social skills have been successful for improving children’s academic performance (e.g., Domitrovich et al, 2017) It seems as if both poor social skills and academic under achievement coexist in the same realm of problem behaviors, which constitute adjustment problems concurrently and predict negative development over time. The aim of this study was to investigate whether patterns of stability and change in social skills could be identified during early childhood, what could contribute to the explanation of the different developmental paths of social skills, and if the paths were related to later school performance even when controlling for other well-documented risk and protective factors for school performance
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