Study Finds that Social Skills May Be as Important as Academic Ones in Kindergarten
I first heard about this on NPR but here's a longer look from PBS . It's a national study of 700 students, from K to age 20, in four places (including Seattle). These socio-emotional skills like listening and helping other students were found to show better outcomes nearly two decades later. Socio-economic skills, as explained by the lead researcher, Damon Jones at Penn State, are "malleable" and can be taught and strengthened. They controlled for early academic skills, socio-economic status, and behavior (as rated by mothers and teachers). We found significant associations in all those domains , crime, education, employment, substance use, mental health. For instance, children — for each point on the social competence scale, children were twice as likely to receive a college degree by age 25. There were consistent results for the crime outcomes. From USA Today Children with poor social skills in kindergarten are by no means a lost cause, pediatrician...