Pathways to Early Academic Success: Exploring Direct and Indirect Effects of Child and Family Factors Through the Lens of Emotion

Early academic success is shaped by several factors, including emotional development, self-regulation, and cognitive capacity. Grounded in Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory and Self-Regulation Theory, this dissertation project looks at the direct and indirect effects of emotion related child- and family-level factors in Black and Latinx children. This study examines the complexity of early academic achievement through an emotion-based lens that examines parental depression, emotional reactivity, family emotional expressiveness, hot executive function. As a distinct construct from hot executive functioning, cool executive function is also examined as it works in conjunction with hot executive functioning. For longitudinal analyses, a two-group (biological males and females) cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) was modeled across four waves of data from 399 Black and Latinx children (Wave 1 = 30 months to Wave 4: First Grade) and their caregivers. Results imply that higher parental depression is associated with an increase in emotional reactivity and a poorer hot executive function. Hot executive function (Wave 2) and parental depression (Wave 2) are directly associated with academic achievement in both biological males and females. Family emotional expressiveness acts as moderator for highly emotionally reactive students to develop hot executive functioning skills. Additionally, higher parental depression is linked to increased emotional reactivity and poorer hot executive performance. Interestingly, hot executive function seems to be a better predictor of early academic success than cool executive function in early childhood. This study helps enhance the research surrounding self-regulation. It emphasizes the distinction between hot and cool executive functioning and shifts the current emphasis from cognitive factors underscoring academic success to the emotional aspects, including family factors. Through the identification of important environmental and psychological elements influencing self-regulation, the study emphasizes the importance of focused interventions supporting not only the emotional development but also the mental well-being of caregivers. The results of this dissertation study highlight the equal importance of both cognitive and emotional competencies in early academic achievement. Educators and policymakers should consider a comprehensive social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum and focused intervention strategies to aid in the development of self-regulation.