Emotional Competence, Poverty, and Mental Health

描述(由申请人提供)：这项指导研究科学家奖(K01)将使候选人，一名发展心理学家，成为发展精神病理学的独立研究员，专注于低收入儿童和家庭的情绪处理。职业目标是解释情绪能力如何与入学准备有关，并确定在这一服务不足的人群中影响情绪能力发展的因素，重点是预防的影响。研究目标是描述低收入学龄前和幼儿园适龄儿童在入学过渡期间的情绪能力，并考察学龄前情绪能力是否可以预测幼儿园的入学准备，包括社会能力、心理健康功能(内化和外化行为)、学术知识和学校技能。这项拟议的短期纵向研究包括通过教师对情绪调节的报告、对儿童情绪知识和理解的访谈评估以及对Head Start课堂环境中情绪表达、调节和社交参与的现场观察，评估120名低收入学龄前儿童的情绪能力。在儿童过渡到幼儿园后，将以多方法、多信息来源的后续行动来评估入学准备情况。候选人将与发展精神病理学研究专家Ronald Sell博士以及在情绪能力(Susanne Denham博士)、低收入儿童入学准备(David Arnold博士)和此类工作的临床影响(Susan Dickstein博士)方面拥有专长的共同导师一起完成严格的培训。培训目标是学习新的统计技能(例如，分层线性建模)；获得在高危儿童和家庭中设计纵向研究以及在学校环境中进行方法密集研究的专业知识；并获得观察性研究方面的技术培训(来自Roger Bakeman博士、Deborah Capaldi博士和Carroll Izard博士)。通过这种专门的培训，候选人将在未来的研究中做好准备，以测试情绪能力的综合发展模型，检查家庭影响，并使用复杂的方法(例如，微分析)来调查情绪能力的个体差异对低收入儿童的心理健康和入学准备的重要性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This Mentored Research Scientist Award (K01) will enable the candidate, a developmental psychologist, to become an independent researcher in developmental psychopathology, with a focus on emotion processing in low-income children and families. Career goals are to explain how emotional competence relates to readiness for school and to identify factors that influence the development of emotional competence in this underserved population, with an emphasis on implications for prevention. Research goals are to describe emotional competence in low-income preschool and kindergarten-age children during the transition to school and to examine whether preschool emotional competence predicts kindergarten school readiness, including social competence, mental health functioning (internalizing and externalizing behavior), academic knowledge and school skills. The proposed short-term longitudinal study involves assessing 120 low-income preschool children's emotional competence via teacher reports of emotion regulation, interview assessments of child emotion knowledge and understanding, and live observations of emotional expression, regulation, and social engagement in Head Start classroom settings. School readiness will be assessed in a multi-method, multi-informant follow-up after children transition to kindergarten. The candidate will complete rigorous training with Ronald Seller, Ph.D., an expert in developmental psychopathology research, and co-mentors with expertise in emotional competence (Susanne Denham, Ph.D.), low-income children's school readiness (David Arnold, Ph.D.), and clinical implications of such work (Susan Dickstein, Ph.D.). Training goals are to learn new statistical skills (e.g., Hierarchical Linear Modeling); gain expertise both in designing longitudinal studies with high-risk children and families and in conducting methodologically intensive research in school settings; and acquire technical training in observational research (from Roger Bakeman, Ph.D., Deborah Capaldi, Ph.D., and Carroll Izard, Ph.D.). With such specialized training, the candidate will be prepared in future research to test a comprehensive developmental model of emotional competence, examining family influences and using sophisticated methods (e.g., microanalytic analyses) to investigate the significance of individual differences in emotional competence for low-income children's mental health and school readiness.