Adversity in early childhood: Long-term effects on early academic skills

Abstract

Background: The dimensional adversity model (McLaughlin & Sheridan, 2016) proposes that deprivation and threat affect child development differently. However, empirical support for the dimensional adversity model stems predominately from adolescent samples.

Objective: We aimed to examine if deprivation and threat experiences in infancy have differential effects on pre-academic skills in early childhood. Furthermore, we addressed the effect of chronic vs. temporary adversity exposure in infancy.

Participants and setting: The population-based sample consisted of 3481 infants (49% girls). New-borns and their families were followed longitudinally (6 months to 6 years of age).

Methods: Based on parental information, we computed four deprivation variables and three threat variables. Pre-academic cognitive and social-emotional skills were measured with a math and a vocabulary test and parental questionnaires on emotion regulation and behavioral problems.

Results: Results showed that infant deprivation (but not threat) is negatively associated with math scores (β = -0.06) and language skills (β = -0.04) in kindergarten. However, infant threat and deprivation were both associated with behavioral problems (β = 0.06; β = 0.04) and emotion-regulation difficulties (β = 0.04; β = 0.03) in kindergarten. Analyses comparing chronic vs. temporary adversity exposure showed that chronic exposure was strongly related to all cognitive and social-emotional outcomes.

Conclusions: We found partial support for the differential effects of deprivation and threat on pre-academic skills. Furthermore, the results suggest that particularly chronic adversity poses a potential risk for development - across domains of cognition and emotions.

Keywords: Cognitive development; Deprivation; Infant adversity; Social-emotional development; Threat.