Low Socioeconomic Status Homes Research Articles

Biological sensitivity to environmental context fluctuates dynamically within individuals from day to day

This longitudinal, within-subjects study examined whether adolescents’ biological sensitivity to socioeconomic status (SES) for emerging social difficulties varied day to day. Diverse adolescents (N = 315; ages 11–18; 57% female; 25% Asian, 18% Latinx, 11% Black) provided daily diaries and saliva samples for 4 days. We measured biological sensitivity as daily fluctuations in diurnal cortisol slope, and SES as a principal component of family income and maternal education. A robust analysis of 1013 daily assessments revealed that youth from lower SES homes reported greater social difficulties only on days that they exhibited flatter diurnal cortisol slopes, and youth from higher SES homes reported fewer social difficulties on these days. SES was not associated with social difficulties on days that adolescents exhibited steeper, declining diurnal cortisol slopes. Findings support recent theory that risk and resilience are dynamic processes that change within individuals over time. For better and for worse, youth may be more biologically sensitive to their family socioeconomic environments on days that their diurnal cortisol rhythms are flattened.

A systematic review suggests marked differences in the prevalence of infant-directed vocalization across groups of populations.

Anthropological reports have long suggested that speaking to young children is very infrequent in certain populations (notably farming ones), which is in line with scattered quantitative studies. A systematic review was undertaken to use available literature in order to estimate the extent of population variation. Database searches, expert lists, and citation searches led to the discovery of 29 reports on the frequency of vocalizations directed to infants aged 24 months or younger, based on systematic observations of spontaneous activity in the infant's natural environment lasting at least 30 min in length. Together, these studies provide evidence on 1314 infants growing up in a range of communities (urban, foraging, farming). For populations located outside of North America, the frequency with which vocalization was directed to urban infants was much higher than that for rural infants (including both foraging and farming, medians=12.6 vs. 3.6% of observations contained infant-directed vocalization behaviors). We benchmarked this effect against socio-economic status (SES) variation in the United States, which was much smaller. Infants in high SES American homes were spoken to only slightly more frequently than those in low SES homes (medians=16.4 vs. 15.1% of observations contained infant-directed vocalization behaviors). Although published research represents a biased sample of the world's populations, these results invite further cross-population research to understand the causes and effects of such considerable population group differences.

Neural oscillations reveal differences in the process of word learning among school-aged children from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds.

Building a robust vocabulary in grade school is essential for academic success. Children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) households on average perform below their higher SES peers on word learning tasks, negatively impacting their vocabulary; however, significant variability exists within this group. Many children from low SES homes perform as well as, or better than, their higher SES peers on measures of word learning. The current study addresses what processes underlie this variability, by comparing the neural oscillations of 44 better versus worse word learners (ages 8-15 years) from lower SES households as they infer the meaning of unknown words. Better word learners demonstrated increases in theta and beta power as a word was learned, whereas worse word learners exhibited decreases in alpha power. These group differences in neural oscillatory engagement during word learning indicate there may be different strategies employed based on differences in children's skills. Notably, children with greater vocabulary knowledge are more likely to exhibit larger beta increases; a strategy which is associated with better word learning. This sheds new light on the mechanisms that support word learning in children from low SES households.

Assessment of Particulate Matter Levels in Homes with Children

Children’s exposure to particulate matter (PM) is of great interest because it can cause adverse health effects, including asthma, and decreased lung function. The purpose of this study was to determine the levels of PM in low socio-economic status homes in Omaha, Nebraska. Between October 2018 and September 2019, we collected ambient air PM samples from 30 homes, of which 70% had at least one asthmatic child. Samples were collected at the 2-foot level and the 4-foot level to approximate the breathing zones of toddlers and older children, respectively. We also asked the study participants questions related to indoor air quality (IAQ). Indoor PM levels ranged from 4.28 to 72.81 μg/m3. There was a significant association between IAQ and the furnace filter status (dirty or clean) (p = 0.023, OR = 7.5 [95% confidence interval: 1.40, 39.84]). We found that IAQ status suggests a significant association with the level of housekeeping (p = 0.05, OR = 4.76 [95% confidence interval: 0.95, 23.86]). Indoor PM levels varied significantly between 2 feet and 4 feet (p < 0.05). PM levels could differ substantially depending on the furnace filter’s status. In addition, exposure to PM can significantly depend on the child’s height.

Communicative Function Use of Preschoolers and Mothers From Differing Racial and Socioeconomic Groups.

This study explores whether communicative function (CF: reasons for communicating) use differs by socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, or gender among preschoolers and their mothers. Mother-preschooler dyads (N = 95) from the National Center for Early Development and Learning's (2005) study of family and social environments were observed during 1 structured learning and free-play interaction. CFs were coded by trained independent raters. Children used all CFs at similar rates, but those from low SES homes produced fewer utterances and less reasoning, whereas boys used less self-maintaining and more predicting. African American mothers produced more directing and less responding than European American and Latino American mothers, and Latino American mothers produced more utterances than European American mothers. Mothers from low SES homes did more directing and less responding. Mothers exhibited more sociocultural differences in CFs than children; this suggests that maternal demographic characteristics may influence CF production more than child demographics at school entry. Children from low SES homes talking less and boys producing less self-maintaining coincided with patterns previously detected in pragmatic literature. Overall, preschoolers from racial/ethnic minority and low SES homes were not less deft with CF usage, which may inform how their pragmatic skills are described. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5890255.

Incidence of Truancy among Senior Secondary School Students in Epe Local Government Area, Lagos State, Nigeria: Implications for Counselling

<em>This paper examined the incidence of truancy among senior secondary school students in Epe Local Government Area of Lagos State and suggests ways counselling can be used to curb the problem. Three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study and the design was Ex-post Facto. The sample size was 119 Senior Secondary II students randomly selected from 5 out of the 22 public secondary schools in the local government area. An instrument titled “Incidence of Truancy among Secondary School Students” was used to collect data from the respondents. It had face and content validity through expert judgement and the reliability coefficient was 0.73. The data obtained was analyzed with the Z-test statistics. The results indicated that there is no significant difference between male and female students; urban and rural students and students from high and low socio-economic status homes in their indulgence in truancy. It was recommended that Form Masters/Mistresses should be more objective in taking class attendance and refer truants to guidance counsellors.</em>

Vocabulary knowledge mediates the link between socioeconomic status and word learning in grade school

The relationship between children’s slow vocabulary growth and the family’s low socioeconomic status (SES) has been well documented. However, previous studies have often focused on infants or preschoolers and primarily used static measures of vocabulary at multiple time points. To date, there is no research investigating whether SES predicts a child’s word learning abilities in grade school and, if so, what mediates this relationship. In this study, 68 children aged 8–15 years performed a written word learning from context task that required using the surrounding text to identify the meaning of an unknown word. Results revealed that vocabulary knowledge significantly mediated the relationship between SES (as measured by maternal education) and word learning. This was true despite the fact that the words in the linguistic context surrounding the target word are typically acquired well before 8 years of age. When controlling for vocabulary, word learning from written context was not predicted by differences in reading comprehension, decoding, or working memory. These findings reveal that differences in vocabulary growth between grade school children from low and higher SES homes are likely related to differences in the process of word learning more than knowledge of surrounding words or reading skills. Specifically, children from lower SES homes are not as effective at using known vocabulary to build a robust semantic representation of incoming text to identify the meaning of an unknown word.

Protocol for a Systematic Review: Targeted School‐Based Interventions for Improving Reading and Mathematics for Students With or At‐Risk of Academic Difficulties in Grade 7 to 12: A Systematic Review

Protocol for a Systematic Review: Targeted School‐Based Interventions for Improving Reading and Mathematics for Students With or At‐Risk of Academic Difficulties in Grade 7 to 12: A Systematic Review

African American English–Speaking Students: A Longitudinal Examination of Style Shifting From Kindergarten Through Second Grade

The purpose of this longitudinal study was twofold: to examine shifting from African American English (AAE) to mainstream American English (MAE) across the early elementary grades, when students are first exposed to formal instruction in reading; and to examine how metalinguistic and cognitive variables influenced the students' dialectal adaptations from AAE to MAE in a literacy context with higher expectations for MAE. Participants were 102 typically developing AAE-speaking students enrolled in public schools in the northern Midwest. They were enrolled in the project at kindergarten and tested 3 times a year, for 3 years. Approximately half were male and half female, and two-thirds were from low socioeconomic status homes. A style shifting coefficient (SSC) was created to measure amounts of dialect change between contexts and over time by individuals. Some students shifted to MAE in literacy contexts, and shifting was not related to grade. Metalinguistic skills and SSC predicted reading, and metalinguistic skills predicted the SSC at 2nd grade. The findings indicated that cognitive executive functions may contribute to the SSC. The results provide strong support for the dialect shifting-reading achievement hypothesis and indicated that metalinguistic and perhaps executive functioning are important influences on this linguistic adaptation.

Economic adversity and children’s sleep problems: Multiple indicators and moderation of effects.

Toward explicating relations between economic adversity and children's sleep, we examined associations between multiple indicators of socioeconomic status (SES)/adversity and children's objectively and subjectively derived sleep parameters; ethnicity was examined as potential moderator. Participants were 276 third- and fourth-grade children and their families (133 girls; M age = 9.44 years; SD = .71): 66% European American (EA) and 34% African American (AA). Four SES indicators were used: income-to-needs ratio, perceived economic well-being, maternal education, and community poverty. Children wore actigraphs for 7 nights and completed a self-report measure to assess sleep problems. Objectively and subjectively assessed sleep parameters were related to different SES indicators, and overall worse sleep was evident for children from lower SES homes. Specifically, children from homes with lower income-to-needs ratios had higher levels of reported sleep/wake problems. Parental perceived economic well-being was associated with shorter sleep minutes and greater variability in sleep onset for children. Lower mother's education was associated with lower sleep efficiency. Children who attended Title 1 schools had shorter sleep minutes. Ethnicity was a significant moderator of effects in the link between some SES indicators and children's sleep. AA children's sleep was more negatively affected by income-to-needs ratio and mother's education than was the sleep of EA children. The results advocate for the importance of specifying particular SES and sleep variables used because they may affect the ability to detect associations between sleep and economic adversity.

Mothers, fathers, and toddlers: Parental psychosocial functioning as a context for young children’s sleep.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prospective relations between parental psychosocial functioning and toddlers' sleep consolidation. Investigators met with 85 families 3 times, when children were 15 months (Time 1 [T1]), 18 months (T2), and 2 years of age (T3). Mothers and fathers completed questionnaires pertaining to their parenting stress, marital satisfaction, and perceived social support at T1 or T2, and mothers completed child sleep diaries at T2 and T3. Results indicated that fathers' parenting stress and marital satisfaction, as well as mothers' perceived social support, were related in expected directions to children's subsequent sleep consolidation (T3), with or without controlling for prior sleep consolidation (T2). In addition, all these relations were moderated by family socioeconomic status (SES), such that links were stronger in lower SES homes.

Morphological Awareness Intervention With Kindergartners and First- and Second-Grade Students From Low Socioeconomic Status Homes: A Feasibility Study

The effect of a morphological awareness intervention on the morphological awareness and literacy skills of students from low socioeconomic status homes was investigated. A 9-week intervention designed to increase awareness of affixes and the relations between base words and their inflected and derived forms was conducted with students in kindergarten (n = 19), 1st grade (n = 21), and 2nd grade (n = 21). Groups of 4-5 students were provided with instruction 4 times a week for 25 min a day. Results showed medium to very large clinically significant gains in morphological awareness and literacy abilities (ds = 0.29-2.96) across all participants. The results of this feasibility study suggest that morphological awareness instruction that requires students to analyze, recognize, orally produce, and determine the spelling patterns of multimorphemic words leads to therapeutic effects within a population of young students who are at risk for future reading difficulties. Initial clinical implications, limitations of the study, and research suggestions are discussed.

Children’s sleep and adjustment: A residualized change analysis.

We investigated longitudinal relations between children's sleep and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and anger/aggression. We expected that initial sleep problems and increases in these problems over time would be associated with worse adjustment outcomes. The study had 3 waves with 1-year lags. At Time 1 [T1], 128 girls and 123 boys (M age = 8.23 years, SD = 0.73) participated; M ages at Time 2 (T2) and Time 3 (T3) = 9.31 years (SD = 0.79) and 10.28 (SD = 0.99). The sample was diverse in relation to economic adversity and ethnicity (66% European and 34% African American). Higher initial levels and increases in sleep/wake problems or sleepiness over 3 years predicted higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms at T3, controlling for T1 levels. These associations were more pronounced for girls, African American children, and children from lower socioeconomic status homes. Findings build on a small body of literature addressing links between sleep and adjustment longitudinally and highlight the importance of adequate sleep for children's optimal development, especially within the broader sociocultural milieu..

Factors Associated with Perceived Cognitive Problems in Children and Adolescents with Congenital Heart Disease

The objective of the present study was to assess demographic and disease-specific factors associated with perceived cognitive problems in children and adolescents with heart disease. 246 children with congenital heart disease ages 8-18years and their parents completed the Cognitive Problems Scale of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Cardiac Module. The 5-item Cognitive Problems Scale assesses school-related cognitive problems including attention and memory from the perspective of the child and parent. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted with demographic variables and disease-specific factors entered as independent variables and perceived cognitive problems as the dependent variable. Socioeconomic status (SES) and cardiac disease severity were significantly associated with parent proxy-reported cognitive problems (p<.05). None of the demographic or disease-specific variables were significantly associated with child self-reported cognitive problems. In conclusion, our data suggest that assessment of perceived cognitive problems in children and adolescents with greater disease severity and from lower SES homes may facilitate early identification of children who need formal evaluation and interventions to address cognitive impairments.

Children’s Sleep and Adjustment Over Time: The Role of Socioeconomic Context

Relations were examined between children's sleep and their externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Longitudinal relations were examined when children were in 3rd (T1) and 5th (T2) grades, and cross-sectional relations were assessed at T2. Participants included 176 children at T1 (M = 8.68 years) and 141 children at T2 (M = 10.70 years). Sleep was examined via subjective reports and actigraphy. Children reported on anxiety, self-esteem, and depression symptoms, and parents reported on children's externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Cross-sectionally and longitudinally, sleep problems were associated with worse adjustment outcomes; African American children or those from lower socioeconomic status homes were at particular risk. Findings highlight the importance of adequate sleep for children's optimal development, especially in the context of ecological risk.

Socio-Demographic Factors Influencing Work-Role Salience Among Nigerian High School Adolescents.

This study sought to find out the influence of socio-demographic factors (age, class level, sex and socio-economic status) on the work-role salience of some selected adolescents in Ibadan. Two hundred and thirty students made up of 123 males and 107 females were randomly selected for the study from five schools in Ibadan. Green ha us\' (1973) Work-Role Salience Scale was used to collect data from the respondents. The findings showed that students from lower socio-economic status homes and those from high socio-economic status homes, and SSI and SS3 students differed significantly in their work-role salience mean scores. However, male and female students and students of ages 14 years and below and students of age 15years and above did not differ significantly in their work-role salience scores. The need to involve the students\' parents in career education programmes and utilise career development activities for each school grade was highlighted. The Nigerian Journal Of Guidance And Counselling Vol. 7 (1) 2000: pp. 142-152

A Preliminary Examination of Vocabulary and Word Learning in African American Toddlers From Middle and Low Socioeconomic Status Homes

This study examined the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on the early lexical performance of African American children. Thirty African American toddlers (30 to 40 months old) from low-SES (n = 15) and middle-SES (n = 15) backgrounds participated in the study. Their lexical-semantic performance was examined on 2 norm-referenced standardized tests of vocabulary, a measure of lexical diversity (number of different words) derived from language samples, and a fast mapping task that examined novel word learning. Toddlers from low-SES homes performed significantly poorer than those from middle-SES homes on standardized receptive and expressive vocabulary tests and on the number of different words used in spontaneous speech. No significant SES group differences were observed in their ability to learn novel word meanings on a fast mapping task. The influence of socioeconomic background on African American children's lexical semantic tasks varies with the type of measure used.

A Longitudinal Exploration of the Cross-Contextual Stability of Social Withdrawal in Early Adolescence

The purpose for the present study was to determine the stability across time and social setting of the social withdrawal of early adolescents. Nominations by school peers for social withdrawal were stable across a 3-year period. Daily activity logs completed by parents indicated considerable stability for participation in large-group activities with peers in the community, but not for activities involving smaller groups of peers. Participants nominated as socially withdrawn by their schoolmates were involved less extensively in activities with peers in home and community environments than were other participants. Participants from families of higher socioeconomic status (SES) participated more frequently in home and community social activities with peers than did participants from lower SES homes, especially in large-group activities. These results indicated that social withdrawal during early adolescence is consistent across settings and stable over time, especially for the subgroup of early adolescents who are the most withdrawn socially.

Syntax in Children's Written Composition, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Development

This paper reports an investigation into aspects of syntax in the written compositions of school children. A total of 240 pupils was assigned to cells of equal numbers in a three-way analysis of variance design utilizing grade (4), sex (2), and socioeconomic status (2), with I.Q. as a covariate. Each pupil wrote three compositions, answered a questionnaire about home background, and completed a short Test of Cognitive Development. Contrary to hypotheses, pupils from low socioeconomic status homes showed no marked deficit on variables of complexity, length, and variety in written syntax when compared with pupils from high socioeconomic status homes. Further, stage of cognitive development, operationalized as concrete or formal thinking, did not interact with socioeconomic background in affecting maturity of written syntax. Implications for Bernstein's theories of language codes are discussed.

Some Personality and Motivational Factors in Reading Retardation

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationships between motivational, personality, and selected variables and retardation in reading achievement. The Ss were one hundred junior high school boys: fifty Cauca sians and fifty Negroes. Forty-three variables were submitted to a factor analysis, which yielded fifteen factors. The five factors which were related to reading problems suggested that inadequate readers had verbal deficits, came from low socioeconomic status homes, and adopted one of three adjustive patterns to their reading disability (aggres siveness, negativism, or passivity). Some of the factors were more descriptive of one racial group than of the other. THE PURPOSE of the present study was to investigate the role of selected motivational and personality variables in reading problems among junior high school students. Many similar studies undertaken in the past have suffered from methodological limitations (8) such as failure to use validated objective personality measures in the assessment of personality variables, or small samples of Ss. Moreover, although motivation has been frequently mentioned as a factor in the etiology of reading problems (17), it has not been objectively measured in the studies reviewed by the authors. A further limitation in many pre vious studies has been their failure to control for the effects of differences in intelligence among Ss. The present investigation was designed to over come these limitations by using objective meas ures of personality and motivation, controlling for intellectual differences, and using a large sample. In addition, the study explored the role of family background, socioeconomic status, race, motor abilities, visual memory, and writing productivity in reading achievement. Methodology