School Entry Skills and Young Adult Outcomes.

Skills acquired during early childhood are believed to lay the foundation for development into adulthood, but this issue has not been carefully examined empirically. Using the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we asked which school readiness skills predict which adult outcomes. The study followed 814 participants to 26 years of age (81% White, 9% Black, 5% Hispanic, 53% female: 23% low income). Analyses related preschool language, academic, executive functioning, and social-emotional skills to adult educational attainment, employment, and arrests. Modest associations were observed. An overall school readiness composite predicted educational attainment, income, and occupational status. Individual school readiness skills independently related to some adult outcomes, with a academic and language composite and inhibitory control predicting educational attainment and executive functioning and social skills predicting occupational status. School readiness skills were not related to self-report of any arrests.