The Course of Regulation and Dysregulation in Children

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的主要目的是：(a)研究不同类型的努力控制（EC，包括抑制主导反应和/或激活亚主导反应的能力，计划和发现错误的能力）和反应性控制（RC）的个体差异对幼儿适应、情绪/皮质醇反应、社会和学术能力、社会认知和人格弹性的潜在贡献；(b)研究父母教养（如情绪的表达、敏感性、温暖、对儿童负面情绪的反应）和遗传（使用与EC和/或适应相关的基因）与儿童调节/控制和适应的关系，以及社会支持、压力或某些类型的父母教养是否会调节这些遗传关系。我们预计(a)低注意力和激活性EC、低弹性、非自愿过度控制和倾向于恐惧/悲伤是至少某些类型的内化问题的预测因素；(b)低RC、低EC和高愤怒/沮丧来预测外化问题；(c) EC随内化症状类型和年龄变化的关系，(d)弹性调节EC与内化问题和社会能力的关系，(e)皮质醇/唾液α -淀淀酶（sAA）对情绪反应、（不良）适应和低EC的反应，(f) EC和/或RC与社会和学术功能的联系，(f)一系列发展结果与EC在生命早期随着年龄的增长而增强的关系。(g)父母教养与EC介导的适应的关系，(h)特定候选基因与EC和适应的关系（可能受到环境因素的调节）。多方法（如行为测量、问卷调查、基因）、多报告者方法将在3项评估中使用，以扩大对18至48个月至7岁儿童的研究。将评估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）；早期的评估包括各种各样的EC、RC、情感、语言、适应和养育指标。这些数据将允许测试EC， RC，父母和基因的联合和独特关系，以适应从幼儿期到学龄。因此，拟议的工作侧重于幼儿心理疾病（包括内在化和外在化问题）和心理健康（社会情感功能）的生物学和环境基础。拟议的工作将检查儿童出现的一系列心理健康问题，包括外化问题，如行为障碍的症状/诊断、注意力不集中问题和对立/挑衅行为，以及内化问题，如抑郁情绪和广泛性焦虑。这项工作还将研究情绪和情绪相关的自我调节、儿童的情绪理解、养育质量、调节的生物（皮质醇）和遗传预测因素以及社会情绪功能对调节的一般质量之间的关系。这项工作的新颖组成部分包括研究的纵向性质（从幼儿期到学龄），对与调节相关的过程的强烈关注，对适应的遗传预测因素的关注，以及对遗传和环境因素（例如，压力，养育）对适应的联合预测的检查。

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).