Improving student-teacher relationships and school adjustment for children with disruptive behavior problems during the transition to kindergarten.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The transition to kindergarten is a crucial developmental period that presents children with new social, academic, and regulatory challenges. The Strong Start indicated prevention program aims to improve the quality of children's relationships with teachers and their behavioral and social adjustment in school during kindergarten. The program targets students who exhibit disruptive behavior problems at school entry and provides a parent and teacher group intervention at the start of kindergarten. We assessed the program's feasibility and efficacy in promoting children's behavioral and social adjustment.
Participants were 79 kindergarten children from 33 classes in seven urban schools. Schools were block-randomized on demographics to immediate or delayed treatment. Parent and teacher sessions focused on promoting positive behavior, strong student-teacher relationships, and effective parent-teacher collaboration. Pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 4-month follow-up assessments compared children's adjustment in treatment versus control groups using parent and teacher questionnaires.
The sample was 63% Caucasian; 68% of children were male and 38% were English language learners. At post-treatment, treatment group children showed greater improvements in behavior problems at school and at home compared to control group children; these effects were sustained at four-month follow-up. By follow-up, treatment group children with elevated baseline behavior problems experienced additional improvements in classroom externalizing and internalizing problems. Treatment effects on student-teacher relationship quality were limited only to children who began school with anxiety as a primary referral concern. The treatment group experienced higher parent-teacher relationship quality and parental school involvement at post-treatment compared to the control group; these factors mediated the treatment's effects on attention problems and ADHD-related behavioral improvements. Treatment effects were moderated by teachers' years of experience; treatment group children showed greater behavioral gains when teachers were more experienced. Children's baseline levels of social skills and behavior problems also emerged as moderators. Parents' group attendance and teachers' implementation of program strategies moderated the effect of treatment condition on behavioral outcomes and school connectedness. Results suggest that Strong Start is a promising intervention for socio-economically and culturally diverse children transitioning to school.