A longitudinal study of self-regulation development: Effects of early life stress and impact on school-readiness

项目摘要/摘要 童年的一项主要任务是学会控制冲动、情绪和注意力。中国的这种自律 童年早期预示着学习准备、社交情绪能力和较少的行为问题。 经历早期生活压力(如贫困、父母精神疾病)的儿童往往表现得更穷 自律，这可能是这些孩子经常观察到的更大的适应问题的原因。 此外，并不是所有面临逆境的孩子都会在以后的生活中挣扎，自我调节可能是 他们的韧性。因此，自律被认为是一种理想的干预机制 波及到其他职能领域。然而，我们对自我发展的认识并不充分。 监管本身，这是必要的，以便确定旨在促进 儿童在高危环境中的积极适应。这项研究项目的总体目标是 了解有助于自我发展的背景、养育方式和生理因素 在经历逆境的家庭中，随着时间的推移，在童年早期进行管理。目标1：测试直接 情境、教养方式、生理因素与儿童自我调节的关系。目标 2：检验预测自我调节和社会情绪结果的路径模型，包括 通过父母教养、儿童睡眠和压力反应系统的中介途径。目标3：检查 这些保护性因素促进了抵御环境风险的复原力。这些假设将在一个 100名幼儿及其家庭的样本。父母和他们3岁的孩子将完成一项 一系列任务来衡量自我调节和育儿行为的各个方面。家长们也会 关于背景因素的报告，如社会经济状况、他们自己的心理健康和家庭 环境。将从儿童身上收集唾液，以测量皮质醇对应激源的反应。睡眠将会是 使用动作记录仪和睡眠日记进行测量。社会情感和就学准备的结果将是 通过客观评估、家长和教师报告来衡量。这项纵向研究将总共有四项 时间点，有两个面对面的评估浪潮和两个在线跟进，使我们能够检查 纵向中介过程。拟议研究的结果将阐明行为和 早期逆境和背景风险因素影响自我调节的生理机制，以及 自我调节如何影响社会情绪和入学准备结果。这将允许 制定有针对性的干预措施，以帮助促进高危人群的自我调节和入学准备 孩子们。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT A major task of childhood is learning to control impulses, emotions, and attention. This self-regulation in early childhood predicts academic readiness, social-emotional competence, and fewer behavior problems. Children experiencing early life stress (e.g. poverty, parental mental illness) tend to demonstrate poorer self-regulation, which might account for greater adjustment problems often observed in these children. Additionally, not all children facing adversity struggle later in life and self-regulation may be a key factor in their resilience. Thus, self-regulation has been cited as an ideal mechanism for interventions likely to cascade to other areas of functioning. However, we don’t fully understand the development of self- regulation itself, which is needed in order to identify targets for preventive interventions aimed at promoting positive adjustment in children in high-risk settings. The overarching goal of this research project is to understand the contextual, parenting, and physiological factors that contribute to the development of self- regulation over time in early childhood in families experiencing adversity. Aim 1: To test the direct associations between the contextual, parenting, and physiological factors and children’s self-regulation. Aim 2: To examine the path model predicting self-regulation and socioemotional outcomes, including mediational pathways through parenting, child sleep, and the stress response system. Aim 3: To examine the protective factors that promote resilience despite contextual risk. These hypotheses will be tested in a sample of 100 young children and their families. Parents and their 3-year-old children will complete a battery of tasks to measure various aspects of self-regulation and parenting behavior. Parents will also report on contextual factors such as socioeconomic status, their own mental health, and the home environment. Saliva will be collected from the child to measure cortisol reactivity to a stressor. Sleep will be measured using actigraphy and sleep diaries. Socioemotional and school-readiness outcomes will be measured by objective assessments, parent- and teacher-report. This longitudinal study will have four total time points, with two in-person assessment waves and two online follow-ups, allowing us to examine longitudinal mediational processes. Results from the proposed study will elucidate the behavioral and physiological mechanisms by which early adversity and contextual risk factors impact self-regulation, and how self-regulation impacts socioemotional and school-readiness outcomes. This will allow for the development of targeted interventions to help promote self-regulation and school-readiness in high-risk children.