The Course of Regulation and Dysregulation in Children

描述(申请人提供)：本研究的主要目的是：(A)考察个体差异在各种努力控制(EC，包括抑制显性反应和/或激活次要反应、计划和发现错误的能力)和反应性(非自愿性)控制(RC)中对幼儿的调整、情绪性/皮质醇反应性、社交和学术能力、社会认知和人格弹性的潜在贡献；以及(B)考察两种父母教养方式(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/或调整有关的基因)对儿童的调节/控制和适应，以及如果社会支持、压力或某些类型的育儿方式缓和了这些遗传关系。我们期望(A)低注意力和激活性的EC、低弹性、非自愿的过度控制和倾向于恐惧/悲伤至少可以预测某些类型的内化问题；(B)低RC、低EC和高愤怒/挫折感可以预测外化问题；(C)EC的关系因内化症状的类型和年龄而异，(D)调节EC与内化问题和社交能力的关系的弹性，(E)皮质醇/唾液α-淀粉酶(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)父母教养与适应的关系由EC调节，以及(H)特定候选基因与EC和调节的关系(可能受环境因素的调节)。在三个评估中将使用多方法(例如，行为测量、问卷、基因)、多报告方法，以扩展对18至48个月至7岁儿童的研究。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)将被评估；早期评估包括EC、RC、情绪性、语言、适应和父母教养的丰富分类指数。这些数据将允许测试EC、RC、父母教养和基因之间的联合和独特关系，以适应从蹒跚学步到上学的年龄。因此，拟议的工作重点是幼儿精神疾病的生物学和环境基础(包括内化和外化问题)和精神健康(社会情绪功能)。拟议的工作将审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，反对/违抗行为，以及内化问题，如情绪低落和普遍焦虑。这项工作还将审查情绪性和与情绪相关的自我调节、儿童的情绪理解、育儿质量、生物(皮质醇)和遗传适应预测因素以及社会情绪功能对适应的总体质量之间的关系。这项工作的新组成部分包括研究的纵向性质(从幼儿到学龄儿童)，对与调节有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、育儿)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).