Mentor Response to Youth Academic Support–Seeking Behavior

Mentoring-based interventions for adolescent offenders are promising strategies for reducing the likelihood of academic underachievement, truancy, and school dropout. Program effectiveness, however, varies widely. Investigation into factors that strengthen the impact of mentoring on academic-related outcomes is warranted. One factor might be academic attunement, or the degree to which a mentor’s emphasis on academics is consistent with youth’s academic support–seeking behavior and desire for academic help. This within-group study examined the relationship between mentor attunement and academic outcomes among youth (N = 204; ages 11-18; 54.5% male) who participated in a time-limited mentoring program. Latent profile analysis identified three distinct groups: attuned mentors, overfocused mentors, and underfocused mentors. In general, youth with attuned mentors reported better postintervention scores as compared with youth with misattuned (i.e., overfocused or underfocused) mentors on perception of school usefulness and importance, academic self-efficacy, and truancy, but not grade point average. Findings suggest the importance of monitoring academic attunement

Parent, Teacher, and Student Perspectives on How Corrective Lenses Improve Child Wellbeing and School Function

OBJECTIVES: Up to 20% of school-age children have a vision problem identifiable by screening, over 80% of which can be corrected with glasses. While vision problems are associated with poor school performance, few studies describe whether and how corrective lenses affect academic achievement and health. Further, there are virtually no studies exploring how children with correctable visual deficits, their parents, and teachers perceive the connection between vision care and school function. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative evaluation of Vision to Learn (VTL), a school-based program providing free corrective lenses to low-income students in Los Angeles. Nine focus groups with students, parents, and teachers from three schools served by VTL explored the relationships between poor vision, receipt of corrective lenses, and school performance and health. RESULTS: Twenty parents, 25 teachers, and 21 students from three elementary schools participated. Participants described how uncorrected visual deficits reduced students’ focus, perseverance, and class participation, affecting academic functioning and psychosocial stress; how receiving corrective lenses improved classroom attention, task persistence, and willingness to practice academic skills; and how serving students in school rather than in clinics increased both access to and use of corrective lenses. CONCLUSIONS FOR PRACTICE: Corrective lenses may positively impact families, teachers, and students coping with visual deficits by improving school function and psychosocial wellbeing. Practices that increase ownership and use of glasses, such as serving students in school, may significantly improve both child health and academic performance

Maternal Early Life Risk Factors for Offspring Birth Weight: Findings from the Add Health Study

The aim of this study was to examine the pathways that link mothers’ early life socioeconomic status (SES) and mothers’ experience of childhood maltreatment with birth weight among their later born offspring. Data were drawn from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of school-aged respondents, initially enrolled during adolescence in Wave I (1994–1995) and Wave II (1996) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and followed-up in adulthood in Wave III (2001–2002). Data on offspring birth weight were obtained from nulliparous females (N=1,897) who had given birth between Waves II and III. Analyses used structural equation modeling to examine the extent to which early life maternal risk predicted offspring birth weight, and demonstrated that maternal childhood SES and maternal childhood maltreatment predicted offspring birth weight through several mediated pathways. First, maternal adolescent substance use and prenatal cigarette use partially mediated the association between maternal childhood SES and offspring birth weight. Second, maternal adolescent depressive symptoms and adult SES partially mediated the association between maternal childhood SES and offspring birth weight. Third, adult SES partially mediated the association between maternal childhood SES and offspring birth weight. Fourth, maternal adolescent substance use and prenatal cigarette use partially mediated the association between maternal childhood maltreatment and offspring birth weight. Finally, maternal adolescent depressive symptoms and adult SES partially mediated the association between maternal childhood maltreatment and offspring birth weight. To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify maternal childhood maltreatment as an early life risk factor for offspring birth weight among a nationally representative sample of young women, and to demonstrate the mechanisms that link childhood SES and maltreatment to offspring birth weight. These findings suggest the importance of designing and implementing prevention and intervention strategies to address early life maternal social conditions in an effort to improve intergenerational child health at birth