Effects of the Getting Ready Intervention on Children’s Interpersonal Competencies:
The Moderating Role of Child and Family Risk
Kathryn E. Woods, M.A., Susan M. Sheridan, Ph.D., Allison Q. Osborn, M.A.,
Brandy L. Clarke, Ph.D., and Kevin A. Kupzyk, M.A.
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Interpersonal Competence

A child’s early years are critical to his or her social-emotional development (Zeanah, Stafford,
Nagle, & Rice, 2005).

Children with a strong sense of social-emotional competence engage more with peers and
teachers, participate in classroom activities, enjoy learning, and are more likely to experience a
positive transition from preschool to kindergarten (Raver & Knitzer, 2002) and future academic
achievement (Hemmeter, Ostrosky, & Fox, 2006).

Many young children, particularly those living in poverty, enter school without the interpersonal
competence necessary to succeed in a formal educational setting (Raver & Knitzer, 2002; Zill,
Moore, Smith, Stief, & Coiro, 1991).

Few studies have examined the development of social-emotional skills among Spanish-speaking
students (Rumberger & Tran, 2006); however, social-emotional development may be impaired
when children have difficulty communicating and understanding peers and teachers.

Young children with disabilities may also struggle to understand their social environment and
often have difficulty developing social relationships, being accepted by peers, interpreting social
cues, learning and demonstrating social competencies and adapting to new environments (Most,
Al-Yagon, Tur-Kaspa, & Margalit, 2000).

Early intervention services may assist children at risk in developing their social-emotional
competence and may be especially influential when focused on strengthening home environments
and parent-child relationships (Epstein, 2001; Hill, 2001).
Getting Ready Intervention

The Getting Ready intervention is an ecological, relationship-based approach to school readiness
for families with children from birth to 5 years of age who are of low income and participating in
home- and center-based early education programs.

A primary emphasis of the Getting Ready intervention is promoting parent engagement via
parental warmth and sensitivity, support for a child’s emerging autonomy, and active
participation in learning.

Getting Ready integrates triadic (parent–child–professional; McCollum & Yates, 1994) and
collaborative (family–school) strategies (Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2008) to promote parent–child
and parent–professional partnerships.
o
o

Triadic strategies prompt warm, supportive parent–child interactions; affirm parents’
competence; focus parents’ attention on child development or skills; provide
developmental information; and model and/or suggest parent actions that can support
child learning.
Collaborative strategies involve planning between parents and teachers to identify child
strengths, determine important social–emotional learning goals, assess current levels of
child functioning, brainstorm plans to support a child’s social–emotional growth, and
monitor child progress.
Getting Ready has been found to promote interpersonal competence for young children (Sheridan
et al., in press); however, the degree to which certain child and family risk factors moderate the
effects needs to be investigated.
PURPOSE OF STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effects of child and family risk factors
on the Getting Ready intervention and interpersonal outcomes for young children living in
poverty.
o
To what extent does the Getting Ready intervention improve preschool students'
interpersonal competence relative to a control group?
o
To what extent do child and family risk factors moderate the effects of the Getting Ready
intervention on preschool students' interpersonal competence?
METHODS
Table 1
Participant Characteristics at Baseline
Children
(n = 220)
M = 43.06 months
(SD = 3.55 months)
Parents
(n = 214)
M = 29.35 years
(SD = 7.71 years)
Teachers
(n = 29)
M = 36.05 years
(SD = 11 years)
Gender
51% Male
95% Female
100% Female
Ethnicity
30% White
25% Hispanic/Latino
18% African-American
25% Other
47% White
26% Hispanic/Latino
16% African-American
11% Other
91% White
9% Hispanic/Latino
Language
92% English
8% Other
Disability
88% no disability
12% identified disability
Mean Age
Public assistance
98% public assistance
2% no public assistance
Employment status
54% employed
46% unemployed
Age at child’s birth
36% under 18 years old
64% over 18 years old
Education
23% less than high school
77% high school diploma or more
Adults in household
40% single parents
60% two+ adults in home
Note. Six parents did not provide demographic information at the baseline measurement.
Measures:

Teachers’ rated student interpersonal competence at baseline and follow-up using:
o Devereaux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA; LeBuffe & Naglieri, 1999) attachment
and initiative subscales
 Attachment (8 items) assesses the mutual, strong, long-lasting relationship
between a child and significant adults (e.g., parents, teachers)
 Initiative (12 items) assesses the child’s ability to think and act independently
 Teachers rated child behavior using a 5-point Likert scale (0 = never; 4 = very
frequently)
 T scores with M = 50, SD = 10
o
Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation short form (SCBE-30; LaFreniere &
Dumas, 1996) Social Competence and Anxiety Withdrawal subscales
 Social Competency (10 items) assesses positive qualities of a child’s adaptation
 Anxiety-withdrawal (10 items) consists of items describing depressed, isolated,
and overly dependent behavior
 Items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale (1 = never, 6 = always)
 Raw scores on a scale of 1 (low) to 6 (high)
Moderators:

Child risk consisted of language (i.e., speaking a language other than English) and disability
status (i.e., parent report of an identified disability) at baseline.

Family risk was calculated by summing the total number of family risk factors (i.e., less than high
school education, single parent household, 18 or younger at age of child birth, receiving public
assistance, not employed or in school) for each child at baseline.
Analysis:

Multilevel modeling (Snijders & Bosker, 1999) was used to test growth curves among dependent
variables with α = .05.
•
Multilevel models included fixed effects for treatment group, the linear effect of time,
and the group by time interaction for all variables in the set.
•
Analyses were conducted with SAS PROC MIXED using residual maximum likelihood
(REML) with Kenward-Roger degrees of freedom to produce unbiased estimating
equations for the variance parameters and evaluate the fixed effects.

The study design is a 4-level complex sampling design (repeated observations [level 1] nested
within each child [level 2], children nested within teachers or classrooms [level 3], and
classrooms nested within schools or programs [level 4]; no significant random effects for school
or teacher were observed.

Since random assignment to treatment condition occurred at the teacher/classroom level, random
effects at the teacher and school levels were constrained to a minimal positive value (0.01) for
model parsimony.

Time was centered to reflect the number of months since randomization.

Missing data due primarily to planned missingness caused by the cohort nature of the study
design was accounted for by the use of FIML in the growth curve modeling framework in SAS
PROC MIXED, which allows data from incomplete cases to be included in the analysis.

Tests of moderation were carried out by adding each moderator as a time X group X moderator
effect, including the main effect of the moderator and each two-way interaction. The three-way
interaction term assessed the extent to which the newly added variable moderated the time X
group interaction. A significant positive interaction indicates the treatment effect is significantly
higher at higher levels of the moderator variable.
RESULTS
Research Question 1

Outcomes of the multilevel analyses assessing the impact of the Getting Ready intervention on
child interpersonal competence are presented in Table 1 and Figures 1 through 4.

The Getting Ready treatment group experienced significantly greater gains over time in
attachment behaviors compared to controls as measured by the DECA; γ = 0.29, t(160) = 2.88, p
< .05, d = 0.75.

Relative to controls, the treatment group had significantly different rates of change in initiative;
γ=0.19, t(156) = 2.12, p < .05, d = .56.

A greater reduction in anxiety/withdrawal behaviors over time as measured on the SCBE-30; γ = 0.02, t(160) = -2.91, p < .05, d = -.74 was observed for the treatment group compared to controls.
Table 1
Experimental Condition X Time Interaction and Main Effects of the Getting Ready Intervention
Effect
Estimate
DECA Initiative
50.83
Intercept (C)
-1.50
Condition (ΔE-C)
0.59
Time (C)
0.19
Cond. X Time (ΔE-C)
DECA Attachment
52.67
Intercept (C)
-1.99
Condition (ΔE-C)
0.26
Time (C)
0.29
Cond. X Time (ΔE-C)
SCBE Anxiety Withdrawal
1.94
Intercept (C)
0.08
Condition (ΔE-C)
-0.01
Time (C)
-0.02
Cond. X Time (ΔE-C)
SCBE Social Competence
3.65
Intercept (C)
-0.10
Condition (ΔE-C)
0.06
Time (C)
0.00
Cond. X Time (ΔE-C)
SE
t
p-value
ES
0.98
1.32
0.07
0.09
218.62
213.83
167.85
156.41
51.90
-1.13
8.81
2.12
< 0.01
0.26
< 0.01
0.04
0.56*
1.01
1.37
0.08
0.10
219.99
214.53
172.80
160.30
51.98
-1.46
3.35
2.88
< 0.01
0.15
< 0.01
0.00
0.75**
0.07
0.10
0.01
0.01
217.06
211.35
174.13
160.86
26.29
0.77
-1.21
-2.91
< 0.01
0.44
0.23
< 0.01 -0.74**
0.09
0.12
0.01
0.01
219.80
213.94
166.28
152.36
39.72
-0.78
9.91
0.58
< 0.01
0.44
< 0.01
0.57
* p < .05; ** p < .01
C = Control Group; E = Experimental Group
Figure 1. DECA Initiative
DF
0.17
Figure 2. DECA Attachment
Figure 3. SCBE Anxiety Withdrawal
Figure 4. SCBE Social Competence
Research Question 2

A summary table describing the effect of child language and disability status as moderators on
child interpersonal competencies is presented in Table 2. Significant moderators are illustrated in
Figures 5 – 10.

Language status moderated the effectiveness of the Getting Ready intervention on all
interpersonal outcomes (i.e., DECA Initiative and Attachment; SCBE Anxiety-Withdrawal and
Social Competency). The Getting Ready intervention was more effective for children who did not
speak English relative to those who did, and relative to the control group.

Disability status moderated effectiveness of the Getting Ready intervention on two outcomes
(i.e., DECA Initiative and SCBE Social Competency). The Getting Ready was significantly more
effective for children with disabilities than those without disabilities, and then the control
condition.

Family risk factors were only a significant moderator for one of the interpersonal outcomes (i.e.,
SCBE Social Competency). The group by time interaction favored the treatment group at low
levels of risk, and the control group at high levels of risk.
Table 2
Significant Moderators of the Effects of the Getting Ready Intervention on Interpersonal Competencies
Child Language
Disability Status
DECA – Initiative
X
X
DECA – Attachment
X
SCBE – Anxiety Withdrawal
X
SCBE – Social Competence
X
Figure 5. DECA Initiative Moderated by
Child Language
X
Figure 6. DECA Initiative Moderated by
Child Disability
Figure 7. DECA Attachment Moderated by
Child Language
Figure 8. SCBE Anxiety Withdrawal
Moderated by Child Language
Figure 9. SCBE Social Competence Moderated
by Child Language
Figure 10. SCBE Social Competence Moderated
by Child Disability
DISCUSSION

This study revealed significant differences between treatment and control participants in the rate
of change over time for certain interpersonal competencies (i.e., attachment, initiative, anxiety
withdrawal).

Getting Ready was more effective at improving outcomes for non-English speaking than Englishspeaking children across all interpersonal outcomes.

Children with identified disabilities in the treatment group improved at a much higher rate than
children without disabilities, and children in the control group, on DECA Initiative and SCBE
Social Competence outcomes.

The direct effects of the Getting Ready intervention on the SCBE Social Competence scale appear
to have been masked by the language spoken by the child and the child’s disability status. For
this variable, there is a significant interaction between the intervention and child language, and
between the intervention and disability status. Intervention effects are noted only when these
child factors are taken into account.

There were also some significant interactions observed with family risk as a moderator. However,
no clear patterns were evident.
LIMITATIONS

Child outcomes were assessed via teacher report only and multiple reports of child outcomes
across home and preschool settings are needed to gauge effects of the intervention objectively
across contexts.

The treatment group showed significantly higher levels of risk than the control group, which may
have presented problems in estimating the possibility of family risk as a moderator of the
intervention effects. There is a need to investigate family risk more extensively to understand its
effects in the context of the Getting Ready intervention.

Lack of follow-up data on children as they transitioned to kindergarten.
IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

This study illustrates the importance of an ecological, relationship-based approach to early
intervention for children who enter school with higher risk, including children in low
socioeconomic conditions who speak a language other than English and children with disabilities.

Variables that potentially mediate intervention effects on child outcomes, such as parental selfefficacy, parent engagement, and fidelity of intervention implementation, need to be explored.

Teacher variables that potentially moderate intervention effects, such as stress, beliefs regarding
parental roles, and agency support, need to be explored.

The long-term effects of the Getting Ready intervention on child interpersonal competencies
beyond the preschool period also need to be examined.
This research was supported by a grant awarded to Drs. Susan M. Sheridan and Carolyn Pope Edwards
by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, Administration for Children and Families, and Office of the Assistant Secretary for
Planning and Evaluation; and by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services (Grant 1R01H00436135).
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