Middle School Follow Up

of The Dallas Preschool Readiness Project

Funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development.

This renewal of the original DPReP study provides our team with the opportunity to continue to study our large cohort of low-income African American and Latino children as they transition into middle school. Our home visits from the previous study have provided us with measures and rich data on child self-regulation skills, academic achievement, and behavior problems as well as family processes such as parenting behavior and socialization practices. In this follow-up study, we will collect an unprecedented breadth and depth of family, school, and neighborhood data. By following this sample into middle school, we will characterize trajectories of self-regulation development, academic achievement, and behavioral adjustment in a way not previously done for this population.  

In this study, we aim to: 

1. Determine how individual differences in trajectories of self-regulation development from 2 1⁄2 years into middle school relate to differences in academic and behavioral adjustment in middle school for low-income African Americans and Latinos. 

2.  Determine how the interrelated contexts of family, school, and neighborhood contribute to the middle school academic and behavioral adjustment of low-income African Americans and Latinos.

3. Determine how effects of family, school, and neighborhood contexts on academic and behavioral adjustment in middle school are both mediated and moderated by self-regulation skills among low-income African Americans and Latinos. 

The study is being completed in collaboration with Dr. Margaret Owen and Dr. Assaf Oshri.