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

项目摘要 与健康有关的逆境使儿童在发展行为自我调节方面的风险增加 这些困难破坏了他们的学习能力，并在整个生命周期中茁壮成长。有近1200万儿童 在美国的贫困中长大，这代表了一个巨大的公共卫生问题。明确 环境决定因素和解释贫穷与儿童 自我调节技能是制定解决家庭挑战的政策的核心， 现存的优势。几个关于早期生活逆境的补充理论框架表明， 经济贫困和心理社会威胁的累积，以及 可预测性，塑造独特的发展机制，使儿童做好准备，以满足他们的需求。 具体环境。该项目将新颖的方法和理论方法结合起来， 在贫困的背景下，早期生活经历的动态变化模式，并审查这种作用， 经验在塑造儿童早期的自我调节方面发挥作用。 幼儿期的特征是大量的神经发育变化，这些变化支持了 满足学校教育的学习和心理社会需求所需的自我调节技能。贫困对 这些发展中的监管体系早在婴儿期就存在，更多的时间花在或低于 联邦贫困线预测随着时间的推移自我调节的困难更大。然而，贫困如何导致这种 差异在很大程度上仍然不为人所知。贫困经历的类型、时间和时间变异性， 以及它们各自在幼儿期情境适应性自我调节技能中的作用， 儿童贫困对长期结果的影响的根本机制。 目前的项目利用一项大型混合方法全国调查的数据， （N~ 13，000）主要是低收入家庭。目标1将应用创新 心理测量，时间序列和定性方法来了解什么，什么时候，为谁 与贫困有关的经验最为突出（1a），以及如何以及在何种条件下， 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中所揭示的经验对儿童在过渡过程中新兴的自我调节技能的影响 接受正规教育。研究结果将提供新颖和及时的见解，以复杂的方式， 与贫困有关的经历影响儿童茁壮成长的能力，对公共卫生产生广泛影响， 在一个历史上的里程碑时刻，需要迫切需要的政策改革。为指导 赞助商Fisher，Obradović和Frankenhuis，拟议的研究和培训计划将准备 申请人的职业生涯作为一个独立的研究人员专注于基础，翻译和应用研究 儿童贫困和自我调节。

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.