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Dr. Chris Blodgett presented “Community Poverty and Adverse Childhood Experience as School Readiness Predictors”

Posted by houghten | March 13, 2018

ECSR Title Slide

On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, CAFRU’s Director, Chris Blodgett, Ph.D., presented the Every Child School Ready study at the University of Washington West Coast Poverty Center’s Roundtable on Poverty and Early Life Adversity.

The Every Child School Ready study examined the predictive power of community poverty and communities’ exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) for school readiness and early academic success. While the effects of community poverty on school readiness and academic success are well known, the use of residents’ ACEs as a community characteristic is a relative new explanatory tool. School readiness is predictive both of longer term academic success and as a result lifespan risk for various social and health problems. The kindergarten readiness assessments for more than 150,000 children in Washington State were associated with multiple community risk and protective factors. We found that poverty and ACEs are integrative concepts that explain variations across communities on a wide range of specific risk and protective factors. Either in combination or as distinct influences, poverty and ACEs are highly predictive of difference in school readiness and academic success in the early school years. The policy and practice implications of these findings will be discussed.

Further resources and readings available on the CAFRU research page include the updated K-12 No School Alone report, the WaKIDS school readiness report, and the accepted manuscript for our elementary school ACEs study.

View a copy of slides presented at the UW West Coast Poverty Center’s Roundtable on Poverty and Early Life Adversity (.pdf)

posted 3/12/2018