Adverse Childhood Experiences of Urban and Rural Preschool Children in Poverty

I   congratulate the authors for their detailed analysis of the problems   experienced by children living in poverty and for dealing with such a   vulnerable population. I would hope that these results are translated into   short-term actions.

Thank   you, and we agree.

I   would recommend the authors to reduce the introduction and broaden the   discussion a little since it only cites one paper to compare their findings   (e.g., lines 84-88 ref: 22 in the introduction) could well be used as a   discussion point for their results.  Another   example would be lines 102-111 ref: 29,30 and 25 to mention a few examples.

We   have broadened the discussion.

I   appreciate the opportunity to review this manuscript and the work that was   completed.  Very interesting and   worthwhile research.  Overall, the   manuscript needs to be reviewed for copy editing and some of those edits are   mentioned below. 

We   have made the suggested changes and edited the full manuscript to correct   others.

Further   information on the methodology would strengthen the analyses sections. 

We   have added and clarified the text.  We   hope this improves the clarity.

Additionally,   the tables provided seem to be out of order and not in the best placement of   the article based on where the information on the analyses is located.

Additionally   comments below: 

Moved   to results section.  We also changed   the order of the tables.

Abstract:

Line   19, as instead of at

Edited   and corrected

Line   20 add a comma after FMI ACEs environmental risk

Edited   and corrected

Adding   results numbers would strengthen the abstract

We   added effect size data to the abstract.

Introduction

Line   31, use of array again. Perhaps use a different word here since array was   used in the first sentence.

Edited   and corrected

Line   96, extra space between incarceration and and   

Edited   and corrected

Line   112, seems to be a word missing after examine

Edited   and corrected

Lines 125-   132, use of tense.  Seems as though it   should be written in past tense to be consistent with the next paragraph

Edited   and corrected

Line   137, consider using the word place instead of space

Edited   and corrected

Line   147, provided instead of provide

Edited   and corrected

Section   2.3 Instruments

Line   193, extra space after items

Edited   and corrected

Table   1, seems out of place.  Would move down   so that it is shown after information on analyses and the table is referenced   in the paragraph.

Moved   to results section. We also changed the order of the tables.

The   table is also a bit difficult to follow, consistent alignment of variable   names would help this.

This   seems to be a shift in the columns during the upload. We will confirm that   the alignment is correct in the final upload.

Table   2, unsure of what green lines specify.    Does not seem to be consistent on the table.

We   don’t see these green lines in our version

For   caregiver interviewed, spell out biological instead of using a shortened term   “bio”

Edited   and corrected

Mention   of ANOVA and logistic regression results under the table, but I do not see   any specific logistic regression results.    This is mainly a descriptive table showing means and proportions.  While the ANOVA may have been conducted to   show associations between those variables and is indicated with the   asterisk.  I do not see any odds ratios   provided for the logistic regression.    Further, I’m unsure what the outcome variable for the logistic   regression would be based on the statement in the analyses section: Comparisons   were conducted (SPSS Version 23.0; IBM,2015)[38] using ANOVA with interaction   terms. ANOVA and logistic regression with post hoc Bonferroni-corrected tests   using the Holm–Bonferroni method, which is more powerful than Bonferroni-corrected   tests

[42,43].

We   clarified in the text and with super scripts in the table. We added Odds   ratios for the logistic results.  The   logistics was only used in the comparisons of dichotomous variables in Table   1 (demographic).

Section   2. 4 Approach to analysis

Please   provide more details on the analyses completed and clarify which analyses   were completed to determine each of the results.  Further details on the moderation analyses   are needed to provide more detail on how that was completed.

We   reviewed all the analyses and added addition details to clarify and expand on   results. We corrected the report of means that were not adjusted for   covariates. We added effect size indicators.

Results

Line   245, missing something in the parentheses

Edited   and corrected

Reference   47 is incomplete

Edited   and corrected