Julia L. Mendez

University of North Carolina at Greensboro | UNCG · Department of Psychology

Relations between children's personal attributes and peer play competence were investigated in a sample of 141 African American preschool children who participated in Head Start. Variable-oriented analyses confirmed that dispositions of temperament, emotion regulation, autonomy, and language were related to children's peer play competence in the cl...

An intervention was developed to promote parent involvement with ethnic minority families of children attending Head Start preschool programs. Two hundred eighty-eight predominantly African American families from a small southern city were included in this study. Parent satisfaction with the program was high, yet engagement was less than optimal. S...

This study examined associations between parents’ developmentally appropriate beliefs about young children’s play and responsive parenting. Low-income parents and their children enrolled in Head Start programmes (n = 231) in the United States participated in the study. Responsive parenting skills (characterized by high levels of warmth and responsi...

Research is accelerating toward a deeper understanding of early childhood education (ECE) environments as protective experiences for Latino children; however, more work remains. This paper provides a review of the evidence that ECE environments benefit Latino children and mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and other poverty...

Literature to date has not yet included a comprehensive examination of barriers to participation in treatment for Latino populations, incorporating the role of acculturation. This study reports on the process of developing and implementing a culturally adapted treatment for promoting parent involvement by Latino parents in Head Start preschool prog...

Purpose: To describe first-time mothers' experiences with online social networking sites in the early postpartum period, explore how mothers use them to gain support, and to evaluate how their use can aid or hinder maternal role transition. Study design: Qualitative descriptive study. Methods: This qualitative descriptive study, using convenie...

Over recent decades, the demographic composition of children in the United States has rapidly shifted, culturally and linguistically. Concomitantly, there has been an increased need for early childhood education (ECE) teacher preparation programs to develop a culturally competent ECE workforce who are equipped to provide equitable learning experien...

UNC Greensboro’s vision is to be a national model for how a public research university can achieve access and excellence to transform students, the institution, and the community. With origins as the segregated Woman’s College (WC), our evolution as a southern metropolitan public university reflects race, place, and their intertwined historical leg...

This paper describes how training school and clinical psychology graduate students in early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) has the potential to fill gaps in the ECMHC workforce, enhance the capacity of early care and education (ECE) providers to effectively support the mental health needs of children and families, and help ECE program...

Hispanic children experience poverty at rates two to three times higher than white children. Latino households with children, in general, have high parental employment coupled with low levels of parental education and stagnant parental earnings relative to non-Latino peers. While many Latino children live in neighborhoods that do not have access to...

Parents’ beliefs have an important influence on their children's play and learning experiences in the home and at school. Given the dramatic increase in the number of Chinese immigrant families and children living in the United States (the population has grown more than six-fold since 1980, reaching 2.3 million in 2019), it is particularly importan...

Significant investments in public early childhood care and education (ECE) have yielded higher Hispanic enrollment in preschool-age programs, but progress has been uneven and inconsistent, especially for the youngest Hispanic children and low-income families. We review how ECE has contributed to Hispanic children’s development, offering a detailed...

In this brief, we estimate the prevalence of care-work disruptions and their consequences for parents’ work in low-income households, examining how both the prevalence and consequences of disruptions may differ for immigrant Hispanic, nonimmigrant Hispanic, Black, and White households. We draw on data from the 2012 National Study of Early Care and...

The United States and countries around the world have shifted to a 24/7 economy, which means increasing numbers of adults are working nonstandard hours. Nonstandard work schedules are generally defined in the literature as work that occurs outside of the traditional daytime and weekly Monday to Friday 9 am–5 pm schedule. This paper defines and disc...

Caregivers are influential in young children’s lives. As most children spend time in care outside of the home, it is critical to examine the interplay between parents and schools and how they influence children's development. The current study examined the spillover of student–teacher relationship quality to the home environment, namely, parenting...

Using data from the NSECE (2012), we find that the use of nonparental care for infants and toddlers in low-income Hispanic households depends largely on whether the child lives in a single- or two-parent household, how many parents are employed, and the number of hours parents work. Low-income Latino infants and toddlers are more likely to experien...

In the current brief, we draw on data from the 2012 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) to extend this earlier work and explore how various characteristics of households, communities, and nonparental care arrangements predict different levels of child care spending for a national sample of low-income Hispanic households with young c...

This brief examines child care costs and affordability for low-income Hispanic households with at least one child ages 0 to 5, the period in which families’ care needs tend to be most acute. Given that care is often needed for older children as well, to cover gaps between school and parents’ work schedules, our household-level analysis of child car...

Analysis of CCDF policies in 13 states in which 80% of low-income Hispanic children reside shows that policies on eligibility, documentation, prioritization and information availability may impact utilization either favorably or unfavorably.

Improving Hispanic families' use of high-quality ECE can facilitate parental employment and reduce gaps in school readiness between Latino and non-Latino children. Drawing from a recently published synthesis of the research on Hispanic ECE access, we highlight some key issues policymakers and providers should consider to expand the availability, af...

This review synthesizes the latest research on ECE access for Hispanic families, with an emphasis on low-income Hispanic populations, to highlight factors that facilitate or impede access for this large and diverse U.S. population. A more comprehensive understanding of these factors can inform policy and practice efforts to ensure equitable access...

Although low-income Hispanic parents reported reasons for conducting an ECE search that were similar to those offered by their black and white peers, they reported fewer ECE search experiences overall. Low-income Hispanic parents were less likely to conduct an ECE search and, when they did, they were less likely to consider more than one provider....

This paper describes the development of the Guilford Parent Academy (GPA), which is a school district-community collaboration developed to promote parent engagement and to assist families by providing online and face-to- face access to resources to help raise a successful and healthy child. Evaluation results over a four-year period suggest that th...

In this chapter we provide an overview of the theoretical perspectives informing research and practice in early relationships, including attachment theory, psychodynamic theory, sociocultural theory, infant mental health, synchrony, the biopsychosocial model, and risk and resilience. This overview is followed by future directions for research and p...

Migrant youth face cultural challenges upon initial adjustment into the United States. Although there is considerable empirical evidence that trauma impacts interpersonal relations, there is a dearth of research examining the association between adverse events and the initial social and cultural exchange experience, and whether this is associated w...

This study examined parents’ developmentally appropriate beliefs about young children’s play and parents’ views on their child’s play skills. This exploratory secondary data analysis was drawn from data on low-income African-American and Latino parents and their children (n = 109) participating in Head Start programmes in the USA. Compared with Afr...

Goals: By providing an inventory and critical assessment of the ECE-related data elements available within existing large-scale data sets that contain large samples of Hispanics, this brief series aims to: 1. provide an inventory and critical assessment of data elements related to ECE search, access, decision-making and utilization that have been m...

Goals: By providing an inventory and critical assessment of the ECE-related data elements available within existing large-scale data sets that contain large samples of Latinos, this brief series aims to: 1. provide an inventory and critical assessment of data elements related to ECE search, access, decision-making and utilization that have been mea...

Goals: By providing an inventory and critical assessment of the ECE-related data elements available within existing large-scale data sets that contain large samples of Hispanics, this brief series aims to: 1. provide an inventory and critical assessment of data elements related to ECE search, access, decision-making and utilization that have been m...

Goals: By providing an inventory and critical assessment of the ECE-related data elements available within existing large-scale data sets that contain large samples of Hispanics, this brief series aims to: 1. provide an inventory and critical assessment of data elements related to ECE search, access, decision-making and utilization that have been m...

Mexican immigrant parents often find themselves raising their children under conditions of poverty, marginalization, and stress. These are conditions related to adapting to life in a new country as well as to the normal stressors and changes associated with the early years of parenting. Of particular concern, given the recent economic downturns of...

This article reviews an emerging literature examining the effects of familism across childhood and adolescence. Familism has been described as a Latino cultural value that emphasizes obligation, filial piety, family support and obedience, and its effects have been documented as primarily protective across childhood and adolescence. This review seek...

Research Findings: This study used a within-group research design and person-centered analytic methods to identify multidimensional profiles of parenting styles, parenting practices, and related emotional factors in a sample of 274 African American mothers recruited from Head Start programs in the northeastern and southeastern United States. Interp...

This study reports data on a sample of Latino immigrant parents and their associated levels of parent involvement in Head Start. Parent involvement was defined and measured as parent behaviors supporting educational and developmental outcomes occurring in the home and community setting (home involvement), the school context (school involvement), an...

Abstract— Guided by a strengths‐based resiliency framework, this article reviews a body of research on the positive influence of interactive peer play for African American preschool children from low‐income households. This literature provides evidence for positive associations among interactive peer play experiences at home and in school, and chil...

This study examined causal beliefs about separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and preferences for help-seeking among 117 Indian American, Puerto Rican, and European American mothers. Mothers completed measures of acculturation and strength of religious faith (SORF) and, after reading vignettes describing SAD, made judgments about the etiology of sympt...

The diversity of the refugee population in the United States requires practicing psychologists to respond by adapting clinical services to meet their mental health needs. However, the available literature on culturally adapted treatments is only a first step in guiding the process for adapting clinical services. This paper describes our experiences...

Research Findings: This study simultaneously examined parental depression and parent involvement as predictors of satisfaction with an early childhood intervention program. Parents (N = 203) of Head Start children participated in this short-term longitudinal study. Measures of parent involvement and satisfaction assessed multiple dimensions of thes...

This article reports on school functioning for 227 youth ages 7-14 (M = 10.3) wim principal diagnoses of separation anxiety disorder (n = 40), social phobia (n = 58), generalized anxiety disorder (n = 76), or no diagnoses (n = 53). School functioning data were gathered via parent and teacher report. Youth with no diagnoses demonstrated significantl...

Research Findings: This study examined the stability of preschoolers' peer play behavior across the school year and the relations between emotion regulation, receptive vocabulary, and the trajectory of social competence deficits. Participants were 331 preschool children attending Head Start; they were primarily African American and from a low-SES b...

Although study of clinical phenomena in individuals from different ethnic backgrounds has improved over the years, African American and Asian American individuals continue to be underrepresented in research samples. Without adequate psychometric data about how questionnaires perform in individuals from different ethnic samples, findings from both w...

This study examined parent characteristics and barriers to participation in a community-based preventive intervention with a sample of 201 parents from low-income and predominantly ethnic minority backgrounds. Person-centered analyses revealed five subgroups of parents who demonstrated variability in their parent characteristics, which included psy...

This study examines factors related to three dimensions of parent involvement in preschool: school-based involvement, home-based involvement, and the parent–teacher relationship. Participants were 154 predominantly African American parents recruited from two Head Start programs. Results of bivariate and canonical correlation analyses support the va...

A rating scale measuring parent beliefs about play was developed and validated with a sample of 224 African American mothers of children attending Head Start. Principal components analyses of the Parent Play Beliefs Scale (PPBS) revealed two factors, Play Support and Academic Focus, which capture parent attitudes regarding the developmental signifi...

Cafri, Yamamiya, Brannick, and Thompson (this issue) reported results from a meta-analysis of relations between three sociocultural factors and body image dissatisfaction. Comparison of the effect sizes reveals that internalization of a thin ideal and perceived pressures have significantly stronger relations to body image dissatisfaction than does...

University-community partnerships are becoming increasingly salient to the development of early childhood education experiences that promote school readiness for young children (Barnett & Frede, 2001). Given the unique skills required for such collaborative research endeavors, there is a need for capacity-building that begins with training of new s...

Cafri, Yamamiya, Brannick, and Thompson (this issue) reported results from a meta-analysis of relations between three sociocultural factors and body image dissatisfaction. Comparison of the effect sizes reveals that internalization of a thin ideal and perceived pressures have significantly stronger relations to body image dissatisfaction than does...

A developmental ecological model was used to identify child attributes, father characteristics, and familial factors associated with multidimensional father involvement with preschool children enrolled in Head Start. The relations between father involvement and children's school readiness were also investigated. Eighty-five African American fathers...

This paper describes a theoretically driven approach uniquely suited for the development of research partnerships between university teams and local communities serving children enrolled in Head Start programs. A literature review on dimensions of successful research partnerships provides a backdrop for presenting the Resilience Partnership-Directe...

Various definitions exist for what constitutes family therapy. In this article, we consider family therapy to encompass any intervention that targets family interactions and conceptualizes problems as existing beyond individual clients. Numerous individual studies and several quantitative reviews have established family therapy as an effective trea...

This investigation examined relations between preschool children's play behavior, language competence, and problem behavior. Parents and teachers provided information on 113 preschool children enrolled in a Head Start program. A subset of these children (n = 34) who participated in a second year of this early intervention preschool program was asse...

Investigated the psychometric properties of a Spanish and English version of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS) when employed with Spanish- and English-speaking teachers and students in an urban, Southeastern community. Psychometrically sound structures were obtained with the Spanish translation of the PIPPS in support of the three origin...

School psychologists and teachers are frequently asked to assess the level of social competence of preschool children as one indicator of their academic readiness. However, many assessment instruments available to psychologists working in early childhood settings fail to consider important contexts where children acquire social competencies. This s...

Understanding the impact of mass media communication from developing countries on Black populations continues to be an important research topic. This study assessed the impact of television, specifically, music video programming from the United States, on 191 Black adolescents from Botswana, a developing country located in southern Africa. Results...

Preschool children's competency in interacting with peers has been associated with long-term school success. Little is known, however, about how this competency relates to other learning readiness domains. The study used multivariate techniques to examine whether low-income preschool children's peer play interactions relate to learning behaviors an...

School adaptation is an important national priority, particularly for children from low-income and minority backgrounds. Informing school readiness initiatives requires a detailed understanding of social competence among children at-risk for school difficulties. This study used a developmental theoretical framework and multivariate research methods...

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the construct and concurrent validity of a modified version of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS), a teacher-rating instrument of interactive play behaviors of preschool children. PIPPS were collected on 523 urban African American Head Start children. The PIPPS scales were confirmed, suppo...

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the construct validity of the parent version of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS) and to compare it with the teacher version. PIPPS were collected on 297 urban Head Start children. The Parent PIPPS replicated the three-factor solution found with the teacher version, supporting the followi...