Social-emotional (SE) skills grow rapidly during the preschool years and support children's ability to manage stress and form positive relationships. Yet little research exists on how SE skills develop over time, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. We examined the development of prosocial SE skills with four waves of data over three years in a sample of Ghanaian preschoolers (N = 1916; 47.6% female). We used factor analysis and vertical scaling to assess the dimensionality of prosocial SE skills and latent growth mixture modeling to identify subgroups as defined by different trajectories. We found two distinct subgroups—normative, in which children gained SE skills over time, and low-growth, in which children had lower initial skill levels and acquired skills at a slower rate over time. Group membership was associated with demographic characteristics and children's first grade academic outcomes, as well as other important non-academic skills.

社会情感 (SE) 技能在学龄前儿童迅速增长，并支持儿童管理压力和建立积极关系的能力。然而，很少有关于社会经济技能如何随着时间发展的研究，特别是在低收入和中等收入国家。我们在三年内在加纳学龄前儿童样本中用四波数据检验了亲社会 SE 技能的发展（N = 1916; 47.6% 女性）。我们使用因子分析和垂直标度来评估亲社会 SE 技能和潜在增长混合模型的维度，以识别由不同轨迹定义的亚组。我们发现了两个不同的亚组——规范型，其中儿童随着时间的推移获得了 SE 技能；低增长型，其中儿童的初始技能水平较低，并且随着时间的推移获得技能的速度较慢。团体成员资格与人口特征和儿童一年级的学业成绩以及其他重要的非学术技能有关。