This longitudinal study examined how social and emotional skills predict academic outcomes among 453 Pakistani children (Mage = 60.0 months, SD = 8.2; 55% girls) from public, private and non-profit preschools. Children’s emotion knowledge, social skills, pre-literacy, and pre-numeracy were assessed twice, six months apart. Multi-level structural equation modelling revealed that, after controlling for initial academic outcomes, children’s early emotion knowledge significantly predicted later pre-literacy (β = .15) and pre-numeracy (β = .20), while early social skills did not predict pre-numeracy and negatively predicted pre-literacy (β = -.11). Mediation analyses revealed that emotion knowledge had significant indirect effects on academic outcomes through later social skills. Findings highlight the important role of emotion knowledge in Pakistani preschoolers’ early learning.
Mazhar et al. (Mon,) studied this question.