Preschool social-emotional lessons improve long-term adult well-being

Almost two decades later, preschool students who received supplemental instruction to build their social, emotional and language skills reported a higher quality of life than peers who did not receive the same skill instruction, according to an interdisciplinary team of Penn State researchers.

In a new study published in the journal American Psychologist, the researchers found that young adults who participated during preschool in the Research Based, Developmentally Informed (REDI) program - which teaches friendship, social problem-solving, language and other skills - reported experiencing fewer depressive symptoms, less loneliness, more empathy and higher levels of life satisfaction than their peers who did not participate in REDI. REDI was developed at Penn State in the early 2000s and deployed in preschool programs across three Pennsylvania counties.

REDI improved lives in meaningful ways. For example, young adults who participated in REDI as children reported almost two more healthy days per month on average compared to peers who did not participate in REDI. That could add up to more than 20 extra healthy days every year, and that benefit may extend for years."

Damon Jones, research professor, Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and co-author of the study

In the 1960s, the federal government created Head Start, a preschool program for children from low-income families. Head Start was designed to develop skills - like turn taking and listening - that are needed to start elementary school successfully because, on average, students who begin school without these skills have lower lifetime academic achievement than their peers. Over the last 50 years, many studies have demonstrated that Head Start contributes to school readiness and long-term academic and life success, but there is still an achievement gap between students from low-income households and their peers, the researchers said.

"Researchers know that early childhood is a prime time to equip students for a life of learning, problem solving and healthy relationships," said Karen Bierman, Evan Pugh University Professor of Psychology at Penn State, lead author of the study and primary designer of the REDI program. "We wanted to understand whether providing students with social, problem-solving and language skills could set them on the path for lifelong success. Despite all the different paths children's lives can take, participation in REDI - a supplemental program delivered in Head Start classrooms - was still associated with a meaningfully better life when they reached adulthood."

The researchers compared 164 students who were in standard Head Start classrooms to 192 students in classrooms that participated in REDI. Everyone in the study received the benefits of the Head Start program, but REDI participants still reported higher quality of life compared to their peers in standard Head Start classrooms.

In REDI, preschool students received two lessons per week around one of four types of skills: friendship skills, including sharing and taking turns; emotional-understanding skills, including recognizing feelings and awareness of how one's behavior affects others; problem-solving skills, including how to remain calm when upset; and language skills, including vocabulary and reading so that children have the language to employ their emotional and social skills.

Additionally, classroom teachers were trained both in how to deliver the REDI lessons and how to employ the lesson skills to address real-life conflicts - like when two students wanted the same toy or one child did not want to sit next to another - that occurred naturally during the school day.

Bierman and her colleagues previously found that children who participated in REDI displayed improved behavior and peer relationships throughout elementary and high school compared to students who did not participate in REDI.

In this study, the researchers surveyed young adults who had participated in one of 44 Head Start programs across three Pennsylvania counties and were between the ages of 21 and 22. Participants answered questions about 11 aspects of their well-being, social adjustment and quality of life, including loneliness, life satisfaction and depression symptoms.

Young adults who had participated in REDI reported lower levels of depressive symptoms, loneliness and conduct problems - a measure of antisocial behavior - than their peers in regular Head Start. They also reported higher levels of empathy, emotional support, healthy days and life satisfaction. No differences were detected on the other four attributes: hyperactivity, symptoms of emotional problems, sociability, and sense of security and belonging.

"Not only did REDI affect seven out of the 11 factors that we measured, but the differences were large enough to matter in the children's lives," Bierman said.

The ability to detect any difference after 18 years points to the value of promoting skill-building when children are young, the researchers said.

"This study adds to the resoundingly clear body of literature that supporting children early in their lives can reverberate for decades," Bierman said. "Also, it demonstrates that social and emotional skills are important for preparing children to succeed in life."

Though the study revealed how effective REDI can be, it also underscored how much work remains to be done, according to Janet Welsh, research professor in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and co-author of the study.

Over the 18 years of the REDI study, the researchers measured difficult experiences - including separation from parents and family instability - that participants experienced during childhood. These experiences had a long-lasting negative impact on the children's health and adjustment at the time of this study, Welsh said.

"Whether children participated in REDI or not, we found that those who faced a higher number of difficult experiences when they were young had poorer well-being as adults," Welsh said. "We need to do everything we can to protect children from harm while also helping them build skills to handle whatever they experience in life. This costs money, but it represents a solid investment in our collective future."

Other Penn State researchers who contributed to this research include Brenda Heinrichs, lead statistician on the REDI project, and Max Crowley, professor of human development and family studies and director of the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center.

The research was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01HD046064-20