The structure of achievement and behavior across middle childhood

This research used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLS Y) to describe and model developmental trajectories across middle childhood . Our sample consisted of approximately 1,000 children of NLSY women who we re aged 6 to 7 years in either 1986 or 1988. Assessments of FIAT math and r eading scores and the mother-reported Behavior Problem index in 1986, 1988, 1990, and 1992 provided data for middle-child trajectories of children age d 6 to 7 in 1986. Assessments in 1988, 1990, 1992, and 1994 provided data f or children aged 6 to 7 in 1988. We used the raw score form of these data t o estimate LISREL-based models of their autoregressive structure. As with o ther samples, average math and reading achievement trajectories were parabo lic for NLSY children, with stores increasing at a decreasing rate over thi s period. Average behavior-problem trajectories were flat. Behind these ave rage shapes was extreme diversity in level land in some cases, slopes), of individual trajectories and a pronounced tendency for above average changes between two adjacent assessments to be followed by opposite-signed changes in the subsequent period. Estimates from our structural models showed grea t heterogeneity in the average level of achievement and behavior for all th ree outcomes and heterogeneous slopes for reading scores as well. Boys but not girls were found to have heterogeneous slopes for math and behavior pro blems, whereas girls but not boys showed a significantly higher degree of p ersistence if "shocked" off of their expected trajectories.