The Course of Regulation and Dysregulation in Children

描述（申请人提供）：本研究的主要目的是：（1）考察不同类型的努力控制中个体差异随时间的潜在贡献（EC，包括抑制显性反应和/或激活亚显性反应、计划和检测错误的能力）和反应性（较少自愿）控制（RC）幼儿的调整，情绪/皮质醇反应，社会和学术能力，社会认知和人格弹性，和（B）检查的协会，双方的养育（例如，情绪表达、敏感性、温暖、对儿童负面情绪的反应）和遗传（使用与EC和/或调节相关的基因）对儿童的调节/控制和调节的影响，以及社会支持、压力或某些类型的养育方式是否会调节这些遗传关系。我们认为：（a）低注意力和激活EC、低弹性、无意识过度控制和恐惧/悲伤倾向至少可以预测某些类型的内化问题;（B）低RC、低EC和高愤怒/挫折可以预测外化问题;（c）EC与内化症状类型和年龄的关系不同，（d）调节EC与内化问题和社会能力的关系的弹性，（e）皮质醇/唾液α-淀粉酶（sAA）响应于与情绪反应性、（不良）调节和低EC的测量相关，（f）EC和/或RC与社会和学术功能的联系，（f）一系列发育结果与EC之间的关系，在生命早期随着年龄的增长而变得更强;（g）由EC介导的养育与适应的关系;以及（h）特定候选基因与EC和适应的关系（可能受环境因素的调节）。多方法（例如，行为测量、问卷调查、基因），将在3项评估中使用多报告者方法，以将儿童研究从18个月延长至48个月，直至7岁。上述变量，以及家庭层面的变量（压力，社会经济地位，婚姻功能），将进行评估;早期的评估包括EC，RC，情绪，语言，调整和养育的指数丰富的品种。这些数据将允许测试的联合和独特的关系EC，RC，养育和基因的调整，从幼儿到学龄。因此，建议的工作重点是幼儿精神疾病的生物和环境基础（包括内化和外化问题）和心理健康（社会情绪功能）。拟议的工作将审查儿童出现的一系列精神健康问题，包括外在问题，如行为障碍的症状/诊断，注意力不集中问题，以及对抗/挑衅行为和内化问题，如抑郁情绪和广泛性焦虑。这项工作还将研究情绪性和情绪相关的自我调节，儿童的情绪理解，父母的质量，和生物（皮质醇）和遗传预测的调整和一般质量的社会情绪功能调整的关系。这项工作的新组成部分包括研究的纵向性质（从幼儿到学龄），对与调节相关的过程的强烈关注，对调整的遗传预测因子的关注，以及对遗传和环境因素（例如，压力，养育）。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The major purposes of the proposed research are (a) to examine the potential contributions over time of individual differences in various types of effortful control (EC, including the abilities to inhibit a dominant response and/or to activate a subdominant response, to plan, and to detect errors) and reactive (less voluntary) control (RC) to young children's adjustment, emotionality/cortisol reactivity, social and academic competence, social cognition, and personality resiliency, and (b) to examine the associations of both parenting (e.g., expression of emotion, sensitivity, warmth, reactions to children's negative emotions) and heredity (using genes linked to EC and/or adjustment) to children's regulation/control and adjustment, and if social support, stress, or some types of parenting moderate these relations for heredity. We expect (a) low attentional and activational EC, low resiliency, involuntary overcontrol, and proneness to fear/sadness to be predictors of at least some types of internalizing problems; (b) low RC, low EC and high anger/frustration to predict externalizing problems; (c) relations of EC to vary with the type of internalizing symptoms and with age, (d) resiliency to mediate relations of EC to internalizing problems and social competence, (e) cortisol/salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) responding to relate to measures of emotional reactivity, (mal)adjustment, and low EC, (f) links of EC and/or RC to social and academic functioning, (f) relations between a range of developmental outcomes and EC to become stronger with age in the early years of life, (g) relations of parenting to adjustment to be mediated by EC, and (h) relations of specific candidate genes with EC and adjustment (perhaps moderated by environmental factors). A multi-method (e.g., behavioral measures, questionnaires, genes), multi-reporter approach will be used in 3 assessments to extend a study of children from age 18 to 48 months through age 7. The aforementioned variables, as well as family-level variables (stress, SES, marital functioning), will be assessed; earlier assessments include a rich assortment of indices of EC, RC, emotionality, language, adjustment, and parenting. These data would allow tests of the joint and unique relations of EC, RC, parenting, and genes to adjustment from toddlerhood to school age. Thus, the proposed work focuses on both the biological and environmental bases of young children's mental illness (including internalizing and externalizing problems) and mental health (socio-emotional functioning).The proposed work would examine the emergence of a range of mental health problems in children, including externalizing problems such as symptoms/diagnosis of conduct disorders, inattention problems, and oppositional/defiant behavior and internalizing problems such as depressed affect and generalized anxiety. The work would also examine relations of emotionality and emotion-related self-regulation, children's emotion understanding, quality of parenting, and biological (cortisol) and genetic predictors of adjustment and general quality of socioemotional functioning to adjustment. Novel components of the work include the longitudinal nature of the study (from toddlerhood to school age), the strong focus on processes related to regulation, the focus on genetic predictors of adjustment, and examination of the joint prediction of adjustment from heredity and environmental factors (e.g., stress, parenting).