Disentangling the role of poverty-related experiences on children's self-regulation: Identifying dynamic and contextually-relevant mechanisms

项目总结 与贫困相关的逆境使儿童形成行为自我调节的风险增加 这些困难破坏了他们的学习能力，并在一生中茁壮成长。有近1200万个孩子 在美国的贫困中长大，这代表着一个巨大的公共卫生问题。澄清 解释贫困与儿童之间联系的环境决定因素和潜在机制 自我调节技能是制定应对家庭挑战的政策的核心，同时利用 现存的优势。早期生活逆境的几个互补的理论框架表明， 经济剥夺和心理社会威胁的积累及其相应的模式 (联合国)可预测性，形成独特的发展机制，使儿童做好准备，满足他们的需求 特定环境。该项目将新的方法和理论途径联系起来，以表征 贫困背景下早期生活经历的动态变化模式，并审查这种作用 经验对儿童早期自我调节的塑造起着重要作用。 儿童早期的特点是大量的神经发育变化，这支持了 满足学校学习和心理社会需求所需的自我调节技能。贫困对以下方面的影响 这些发展中的监管体系早在婴儿期就已经存在，有更多的时间处于或低于 联邦贫困线预测，随着时间的推移，自我监管的困难会更大。然而，贫困是如何导致这样的 差异在很大程度上仍然是未知的。与贫困相关的经历的类型、时间和时间变异性， 以及它们在儿童早期环境适应自我调节技能上的各自作用，可能是候选 儿童贫困对长期结果产生影响的潜在机制。 目前的项目利用大型混合方法全国调查的数据解决了两个目标 (n~13,000)在大流行期间，主要是低收入家庭。目标1将应用创新 心理测量学、时间序列和定性方法，以了解什么、何时和为谁服务 与贫穷有关的经历最为突出(1a)，以及如何以及在什么条件下这样做 体验展开(1b)。目标2将利用准实验方法(即倾向分数)来测试 目标1中揭示的经验对儿童在转变过程中新出现的自我调节技能的假设影响 正式的学校教育。这些发现将为我们提供新的和及时的见解，了解早期 与贫困有关的经历影响儿童茁壮成长的能力，对公共卫生和 在一个需要进行亟需的政策改革的历史转折点上的福祉。在指导下 在赞助商费舍尔、奥布拉多维ć和弗兰肯赫伊斯中，拟议的研究和培训计划将准备 申请成为一名独立研究员，专注于基础研究、翻译研究和应用研究 儿童贫困和自律。

PROJECT SUMMARY Poverty-related adversities place children at an increased risk for developing behavioral self-regulation difficulties that disrupt their capacity to learn and thrive across the lifespan. With nearly 12 million children growing up in poverty in the United States, this represents a monumental public health concern. Clarifying the environmental determinants and underlying mechanisms that explain associations between poverty and child self-regulation skills is central for the creation of policies that address families’ challenges while leveraging extant strengths. Several complementary theoretical frameworks of early life adversity suggest that the accumulation of economic deprivation and psychosocial threat, and their corresponding patterns of (un)predictability, shape distinct developmental mechanisms that prepare children to meet the demands of their specific environments. This project bridges novel methodological and theoretical approaches to characterize dynamic patterns of change in early-life experiences in the context of poverty, and examine the role such experiences play in shaping children’s self-regulation in early childhood. Early childhood is marked by substantial neurodevelopmental changes that support the emergence of self-regulatory skills needed to meet the learning and psychosocial demands of schooling. Effects of poverty on these developing regulatory systems are present as early as infancy, with more years spent at or below the federal poverty line predicting greater self-regulation difficulties over time. Yet, how poverty leads to such disparities remains largely unknown. The type, timing, and temporal variability in poverty-related experiences, and their respective roles on contextually-adaptive self-regulation skills in early childhood, may be candidate mechanisms underlying the effects of child poverty on long-term outcomes. The current project addresses two aims using data from a large mixed-methods national survey (N~13,000) of predominantly low-income families during the pandemic. Aim 1 will apply innovative psychometric, time-series, and qualitative approaches to understand what, when, and for whom poverty-related experiences are most salient (1a), as well as how and under which conditions such experiences unfold (1b). Aim 2 will leverage quasi-experimental methods (i.e., propensity scores) to test the putative impact of experiences revealed in Aim 1 on children’s emerging self-regulation skills as they transition to formal schooling. Findings will afford novel and timely insights into the complex ways in which early poverty-related experiences affect children’s ability to thrive, with broad implications for public health and well-being during a monumental point in history that calls for much-needed policy reform. Under the guidance of Sponsors Fisher, Obradović, and Frankenhuis, the proposed research and training plan will prepare the applicant for a career as an independent researcher focused on the basic, translational, and applied study of child poverty and self-regulation.