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Examines the roles of childcare involvement and parent-child interaction quality on the development of school readiness and social skills among low-income, minority kindergarten children. Findings provide mixed evidence on the role of childcare exposure, with early entry into childcare predicting higher levels of social skills ratings and increased time in such settings predicting lower levels of social skills development. (Contains 49 references and 2 tables.) (GCP)

Randomly assigned 147 families with aggressive child (age 4 to 9 years) to standard family treatment (SFT) focusing exclusively on parental management or to enhanced family treatment (EFT) that also promoted discussions of adult issues. EFT produced significantly lower dropout rate than SFT overall but particularly for high-adversity families. Dropouts were clearly distinguishable from completers on several dimensions. (Author/NB)

Although the events associated with divorce can have negative effects on children who are involved, child maladjustment is not the inevitable consequence of divorce. To investigate the factors which may account for observed variation in children's response to divorce, 46 elementary school children (22 boys, 24 girls), residing with their mothers, were assessed by teachers having no knowledge about the family or child, using Achenbach's Teacher Report Form of the Child Behavior Checklist. The mother and child were separately interviewed about interpersonal relations, the child's perceptions, the functioning of the mother, and status and behavioral variables. An anaylsis of the results showed a high amount of variability in children's behavioral adjustment at school following the marital separation of their parents, particularly for boys. The characteristics of the family and of the separation were related to how the child fared at school. Boys whose parents engaged in less frequent negative interchanges and who saw their fathers often after separation were doing better in school than boys who witnessed overt marital hostility in the home prior to separation. Boys who scored lower on adaptive functioning tended to attribute more blame to themselves for their parents' breakup, to show a fear of abandonment by their families, and to report that the mother frequently made derogatory comments about the father. Finally, mothers whose sons were doing better at school reflected higher performance on a parental skills test and lower stress attributable to the restrictions of the parental role. (BL)

To determine which of several variables best predict aggression in hyperactive children, 38 hyperactive first-, second-, and third-graders were assessed for 12 consecutive school days on 11 behaviors associated with aggression. Behavioral items on the criterion measure, the Daily Behavior Checklist, were summed and then averaged over the 12 days to produce a daily aggression score. Predictor variables included parents' marital conflict, deficits in sustained attention toward children, events during the mother's pregnancy and delivery, parental child-rearing skills, and neuropsychological factors. Daily aggression correlated .36 (13% of variance) with measures of marital and family discord, .40 (16% of variance) with attention performance variables, .57 (33% of variance) with neuropsychological variables, .53 (28% of variance) with prenatal and birth variables, and .54 (29% of variance) with parental variables. Because of the great number of neuropsychological variables, the authors warn that the correlation between those factors and daily aggression be interpreted with caution. The strongest predictor variables from each of the domains were combined in a final regression analysis. Among the strongest individual predictors were the mother's variable level of knowledge of behavioral principles, accidental jarring of the fetus during pregnancy, suspected birth complications, and intensity of the mother's punishment of the child. Preliminary results point to parental child-rearing habits as a potential factor in the existence of aggression in young children. It is suggested that events during pregnancy and delivery have an affect on aggression as well. (Author/RH)