Head Start is the largest and longest-standing publicly-funded preschool program, serving close to 1 million low-income children and their families, with an annual budget of over $10 billion. While early childhood programs such as Head Start have the potential to address the racial disparities and the income-based opportunity gap, the field still lacks sophisticated understanding of what works for whom and why. Most research on early childhood education has focused greater attention on evaluating programs than on identifying the particular ingredients in these programs that produce significant improvements in children’s learning. While it is important to find out whether the program worked, I am more interested in why Head Start worked. In 2002, the Congress mandated the national Head Start Impact Study (HSIS)—an experimental study of a nationally representative sample of 4,440 preschoolers, with participating children being randomized to an offer of attendance in Head Start versus assignment to a control condition, under which no offer was made. The HSIS found that an offer had small impacts on children’s language and literacy. While Head Start’s two-generation approach has emphasized engaging parents in their children’s early learning from its inception in 1965, we do not know to date whether an offer of Head Start improves parental investments, and whether this, in turn, augments the positive effects of the offer on children’s outcomes. Additionally, the HSIS reported that an offer of program attendance produced larger impacts among Spanish-speaking Dual Language Learners (DLL), but the question remains why these particular children benefitted from the program more than did their English-speaking peers. To unpack the mechanisms that mediated these detected effects—through parenting practices—I employed two complementary analytic strategies: [1] multilevel structural-equation modeling and [2] average causal mediation effect estimation, by reanalyzing the original study data. A central aim of my research was to: (a) investigate whether ITT effects on early child language and literacy were mediated through parenting practices, and (b) conducting multi-group comparisons to test whether the impact of these mediational pathways differed by the child’s language status. I found that, on average, assignment increased children’s vocabulary and reading scores (e.s. =+.13; e.s.=+.17, respectively). The randomized offer also increased the frequency of parent-child language-and-literacy activities (e.s.= +.25). In addition to the causal impacts of the program, I observed causal mediation effects, and these mediational effects of program impact on both vocabulary and reading scores differed by DLL status. / Human Development and Education

My dissertation explores an important but understudied dimension of interaction in China’s declining patrilineal kinship system – the childcare support provided by grandparents. Traditionally, paternal grandparents exclusively provided childcare support. Now, this practice appears to be undergoing a transformation towards a more bilateral approach where both maternal and paternal grandparents are involved in childcare. To better understand the changing norms, I investigated the choices of and experiences with grandmother care for 362 urban families with infants in China. In the first study, I examined parents’ motivations for utilizing maternal versus paternal grandmother care by analyzing semi-structured interview data from a subsample of 77 families. Parents discussed four major considerations affecting their selection process, including grandmothers’ availability and qualifications, avoidance of patrilineal conflicts, and construction of multi-caregiver coalitions. Further examination suggested that stronger influence of interpersonal relationships on intergenerational interactions, women’s increased power in connecting with natal families, and a shift from lineage-determined to skill- and child-based care choice may have led to new norms in child care patterns. These findings suggest that the increase in maternal grandmother care reflects the weakening of patrilineality in Chinese society resulting from China’s rapid modernization. In the second study, I explored the associations between the type of grandmother care and parents’ adaptation to parenthood, using a mixed-method approach. Quantitative analysis of the survey data showed that overall grandmother support was found to reduce parenting stress for mothers, but not fathers. In addition, no type of grandmother support, for either mothers or fathers, increased parenting stress. Finally, mothers appeared to be more sensitive to the support offered by their own mother than their in-law. Qualitative analysis of the interview data revealed that the different relationships mothers had with maternal versus paternal grandmothers might have shaped the differences in mothers’ perceived quantity/quality of and satisfaction with the support received. The interviews also suggested that gendered parenting roles that prescribed mother’s primary role as caregiver and father’s primary role as breadwinner may partly explain why grandmother support was more salient for mothers than fathers as a coping resource.

La présente thèse s'inscrit dans la continuité des études comparatives en éducation spéciale. Son but est d'examiner l'importance de la prise en compte des composantes multiaxiales (c'est-à-dire des composantes sensorielles, motrices, et cognitives y compris l'attention, ainsi que des fonctions exécutives, du langage, de la mémoire et du traitement visuospatial) et, plus spécifiquement, des composantes neurologiques structuro-fonctionnelles (chaque structure dans le cerveau joue un rôle particulier, mais parallèlement, sur le plan fonctionnel, ces mêmes structures concourent au fonctionnement harmonieux d'autres structures lors de certaines tâches) dans la conduité du diagnostic ainsi que dans l'arrête des plans d'intervention dans le cas des enfants avec autisme d'âge préscolaire. La thèse étudie cette question aux plans tant théorique que pratique et inclut, à cette fui, deux articles théoriques et trois articles de recherche appliquée de nature exploratoire, évaluative et explicative. Dans le premier article, théorique, l'auteur examine des études charnières qui explorent les enjeux définitionnels, mais également diagnostiques et étiologiques de l'autisme. Cet article donne à voir les défis encore actuels que représentent ces trois plans et explique l'importance, pour sortir de cette impasse, d'étudier l'autisme sous la lentille neurodéveloppementale. En prenant appui sur la thèse de Luria et les plus récents travaux en neurosciences, le second article théorique complète cette réflexion en décrivant les mécanismes neurostructuraux et neurofonctionnels anormaux qui affectent l'enfant avec autisme de manière spécifique durant la petite enfance. L'article précise en quoi ces mécanismes ont une incidence différente sur ses habiletés sensorimotrices, cognitives, langagières, émotives et sociales, et en quoi la nature même de l'incidence varie selon la période de développement ou ces mécanismes anormaux se manifestent. En combinant des méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives, le premier article de recherche appliquée examine les premières manifestations de l'autisme observées avant même que le diagnostic d'autisme n'ait été posé, par l'intermédiaire d'entrevues en profondeur menées auprès des parents de 5 enfants de 4-5 ans avec autisme. L'ensemble des manifestations repertoriées étant de nature sensorielle, dans le deuxième article de recherche, l'auteur s'attarde, à partir d'une grille descriptive des comportements, à préciser quelles manifestations neurosensorielles étaient apparentes chez les jeunes participants autistes par le passé, et lesquelles étaient toujours présentes au moment où a été effectuée cette recherche. Ce travail met en évidence des constantes ainsi que des variations associées à l'âge auquel sont apparues les manifestations. Le troisième et dernier article de recherche examine, à partir de deux outils standardisés (NEPSY et le PEP-R), quelles constantes et quelles variations existent dans les profils des cinq jeunes participants, en étudiant de manière spécifique leurs réponses aux mêmes situations d'évaluation (dans les domaines de la mémoire, des fonctions exécutives, du langage, de l'attention et des fonctions sensorimotrices). Les résultats de cette dernière étude permettent d'identifier quels déficits cognitifs sont communs à l'ensemble des cinq enfants avec autisme et quels deficits varient en fonction de l'étape du développement qui a été perturbée chez chaque individu. En résumé, cette thèse fait le point sur l'état actuel des connaissances en ce qui a trait aux troubles neurodéveloppementaux de l'enfant avec autisme et sur la manière dont les structures neurofonctionnelles, lorsqu'elles sont compromises à un stade critique de leur développement, peuvent (a) contribuer à expliquer certains comportements autistes typiques, caractéristiques de l'ensemble de la population autiste et, en même temps, (b) contribuer à montrer que, selon le stade de développement auquel a lieu l'atteinte neurofonctionnelle, certaines caractéristiques idiosyncrasiques peuvent apparaître. Cette thèse établit également l'importance des témoignages des parents qui gagnent à être reconnus comme experts concernant l'évolution du syndrome de leur enfant. Enfm, par sa réflexion approfondie sur la question du diagnostic d'autisme et sur la pertinence des critères de classification utilisés pour poser ce diagnostic, cette thèse souligne à la fois la difficulté du diagnostic et son caractère spécifique et idiosyncrasique.

Research has found that there are several variables that place children 'at risk' for later school problems. Some of these variables include low socio-economic status (SES), special education eligibility in early childhood, race, and gender. Federally funded preschool programs, such as Head Start and Even Start, provide services for children from low SES backgrounds. Although these programs boast a variety of positive outcomes, there is very little research that conclusively measures their long-term effectiveness. Additionally, the children served in these types of programs still lag behind their middle-class peers overall when they exit the program, and they are more 'at risk' for later academic problems than their peers from higher SES backgrounds. These academic problems, particularly difficulties in learning to read, increase the likelihood that these children will later be referred for special education services. Moreover, as minority children are disproportionately living in poverty in the United States, researchers have called attention to how children from lower SES backgrounds frequently attend low performing schools. In turn, the impact of poverty and placement in poorer performing schools has been linked/associated with discouraging outcomes for various minority groups; for example, African American males tend to be disproportionately represented in special education programs throughout their school years. Likewise, children who have the language impairment (LI) or developmental delay (DD) label as preschoolers are much more likely to receive special education services at a later time in their schooling. Specific literacy-based curricula are being developed and studied to target the needs of these preschool children who are 'at risk' of later special education placement. One such study, the Preschool Curricula Evaluation Research (PCER) project, took place in Leon and Taylor County school districts in northern Florida. This study followed-up the children from the PCER study to examine the effects of an inclusive prekindergarten program by answering the following related research questions: (a) What is the stability of the eligibility classification for special education from preschool into the early elementary grades? (b) Do variations in the preschool curricula to which children are exposed to alter the stability of the eligibility classification? and (c) Are there variables that predict the stability of eligibility classification? The eligibility status was quite stable as children eligible for special education in PreK were 21 times more likely to be eligible for special education. There were less conclusive findings related to curriculum condition. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2008. / July 1, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary Frances Hanline, Professor Directing Thesis; Christopher J. Lonigan, Committee Member; Stephanie Al’Otaiba, Committee Member.

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