Clinical trial NCT00688129: KITS: School Readiness in Foster Care Efficacy Trial
Official title: KITS: School Readiness in Foster Care Efficacy Trial
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: School Readiness
Keywords: school readiness
foster care
maltreatment
literacy
social emotional skills
self regulation
caregiver involvement
Lead sponsor: Oregon Social Learning Center
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
name: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
First posted: 2008-06-02
Enrollment: 192
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 4
Maximum age (years): 6
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: DIAGNOSTIC

Brief summary: The KITS project is a 5-year randomized trial to evaluate a program designed to enhance academic and social-emotional aspects of school readiness for foster preschoolers.

Detailed description: The overarching goal of this research project is to conduct a randomized efficacy trial of a preventive intervention-the Kids in Transition to School (KITS) program-to enhance socioemotional and academic school readiness among preschool-aged foster children. Foster children are at great risk for poor social and academic school outcomes. Because of their experiences of early adversity, these children may have particular vulnerabilities that decrease the likelihood of a successful transition to school. Extensive prior research has shown that chronic early adversity is associated with alterations in the functioning of key neural systems (specifically, prefrontal cortex function and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity) related to self-regulation and stress reactivity. Alterations in these systems may interfere with children's abilities to relate to peers, to maintain focused attention, to follow directions, and to learn academic skills. Additionally, because these children are likely to have experienced multiple living transitions, they may be at a disadvantage in terms of caregiver involvement in school, a critical aspect of early school success. Foster children are recruited in the spring before they enter kindergarten and randomly assigned to the intervention and comparison conditions. The KITS intervention includes three components: (a) child therapeutic play groups to facilitate the development of self-regulatory, social, and emergent literacy skills; (b) a psychoeducational support group to promote caregiver involvement in the child's emergent literacy and schooling and the use of effective parenting techniques; (c) home- and school-based behavioral consultation. The intervention coincides with the transition into kindergarten. Multi-method, multi-agent assessments of the children's socioemotional readiness and literacy skills are conducted at baseline, kindergarten entry, and postkindergarten. We will examine the direct effects of the intervention on school readiness and kindergarten outcomes. We will also assess whether intervention effects are mediated through mechanisms of stress reactivity and regulation and caregiver variables. Finally, we will test for moderator effects of child and contextual characteristics including early adversity (prenatal/neonatal health, maltreatment history and placement history), child cognitive functioning, and placement transitions during the course of the study. An additional exploratory aim of the study is to examine intervention effects on first and second grade outcomes for subsamples of children. Group comparisons and longitudinal growth modeling will allow for evaluation of hypotheses.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* a child currently in foster care
* living in Lane or Marion County, Oregon
* eligible to enter Kindergarten in fall of assessment year (age 5 by September 1 of assessment year)

Exclusion Criteria:

* medical or developmental condition which would prevent the child from completing the assessment tasks
* current or previous involvement in Oregon Social Learning Center treatment programs

Primary outcomes:
measure: Early literacy skills
timeFrame: pre-intervention, pre-kindergarten, end of kindergarten
measure: Social skills
timeFrame: pre-intervention, pre-kindergarten, end of kindergarten
measure: Regulatory skills
timeFrame: pre-intervention, pre-kindergarten, end of kindergarten
measure: Caregiver involvement
timeFrame: pre-intervention, pre-kindergarten, end of kindergarten
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Academic achievement
timeFrame: post-kindergarten, post 1st grade, post 2nd grade
measure: Peer relations
timeFrame: post 1st grade, post 2nd grade
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Eugene
country: United States
facility: Oregon Social Learning Center
state: Oregon
Study officials:
affiliation: Oregon Social Learning Center
name: Katherine C Pears, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Pears KC, Fisher PA, Bronz KD. An Intervention to Promote Social Emotional School Readiness in Foster Children: Preliminary Outcomes From a Pilot Study. School Psych Rev. 2007;36(4):665-673.
citation: Pears KC, Fisher PA, Kim HK, Bruce J, Healey CV, Yoerger K. Immediate Effects of a School Readiness Intervention for Children in Foster Care. Early Educ Dev. 2013 Aug;24(6):771-791. doi: 10.1080/10409289.2013.736037.
citation: Pears KC, Kim HK, Fisher PA. Effects of a School Readiness Intervention for Children in Foster Care on Oppositional and Aggressive Behaviors in Kindergarten. Child Youth Serv Rev. 2012 Dec;34(12):2361-2366. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.08.015. No abstract available.