Emotional Competence, Poverty, and Mental Health

这个指导研究科学家奖（K 01）将使候选人，发展心理学家，成为发展精神病理学的独立研究人员，重点是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，并确定影响这一服务不足人群情绪能力发展的因素，重点是预防的影响。 研究目的是描述低收入学龄前儿童和10岁以下儿童在向学校过渡期间的情绪能力，并检查学龄前情绪能力是否预测幼儿园入学准备，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。 建议的短期纵向研究涉及评估120个低收入学龄前儿童的情绪能力，通过教师的情绪调节报告，儿童情绪知识和理解的访谈评估，情绪表达，调节和社会参与的现场观察，在头启动教室设置。在儿童过渡到幼儿园后，将以多种方法、多信息提供者的后续行动评估入学准备情况。 候选人将完成严格的培训与罗纳德卖方，博士，一位发展精神病理学研究专家，以及在情感能力方面具有专业知识的共同导师（苏珊娜·德纳姆博士），低收入家庭儿童的入学准备（大卫阿诺德博士），以及这些工作的临床意义（Susan Dickstein，Ph.D.）。 培训目标是学习新的统计技能（例如，分层线性模型）;获得设计高风险儿童和家庭纵向研究以及在学校环境中进行方法密集型研究的专业知识;并获得观察性研究的技术培训（来自Roger Bakeman博士，Deborah Capaldi博士，和卡罗尔伊扎德博士）。 有了这样的专业培训，候选人将在未来的研究中做好准备，以测试情感能力的全面发展模型，检查家庭影响和使用复杂的方法（例如，微观分析），探讨情绪能力的个体差异对低收入儿童心理健康和入学准备的意义。

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.