Modeling intraindividual changes in children's social skills at home and at school: A multivariate latent growth approach to understanding between-settings differences in children's social skill development

Multivariate latent growth modeling was used to conceptualize and analyze i ntraindividual changes in children's social skills and interindividual diff erences in these changes in home and school settings. Parent and teacher ra tings assessing children's social skills at home and school settings, respe ctively, were obtained for a sample of 378 children at 4 time points spaced at approximately 12-month intervals over a 4-year period from Kindergarten to Grade 3. Results showed that, in initial status at Kindergarten, there were significant individual differences in social skills in both home and s chool settings and a significant positive association between initial statu s in social skills in the two settings. Systematic between-settings differe nces in children's social skill development were found. Social skills devel opment at home was best described with a nonlinear trajectory in which skil ls increased from Kindergarten to Grade 2 with a substantially larger incre ase from Grade 1 to Grade 2 than from Kindergarten to Grade 1, and then rem ained relatively constant from Grade 2 to Grade 3. In contrast, social skil ls development at school was best described with a negative linear trajecto ry in which skills decreased at a constant rate from Kindergarten to Grade 3. The differences in social skills development may derive form the fact th at different teachers with different expectations regarding social skills p rovided ratings each year while the same parent was the source of at-home s ocial skills ratings. There were significant individual differences in grow th rates in the school as well as the home setting. Evidence of between-set tings differences in social skills development were obtained from different ial patterns of associations between growth parameters (initial status and growth rate) and individual predictors (family income, parent education, ch ild verbal skills) across settings.