Grandmother-grandchild physiological synchrony in Chinese three-generation families: Links with child emotion regulation.

The current study examined the characteristics of physiological synchrony between grandmothers and grandchildren in Chinese three-generation families, and the associations between physiological synchrony and child emotion regulation. The participants included 92 children (age 8-10-year old) and their grandmothers. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was collected from both grandmothers and their grandchildren throughout a collaborative drawing task and a conflict discussion task.

Previously institutionalized toddlers' social and emotional competence and kindergarten adjustment: Indirect effects through executive function.

Longitudinal multimethod data across three time points were examined to explore the associations between previously institutionalized toddlers' ( = 71; 59% female) socioemotional skills (Time Point 1: 18 months to 3-years-old), executive functioning (i.e., attention, working memory, inhibitory control) in the preschool years (Time Point 2: 2-4-years-old), and adjustment in kindergarten (5-6-years-old).

Developmental antecedents of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in middle childhood: The role of father-child interactions and children's emotional underregulation.

The present study examined the influence of fathers' parenting quality during infancy on children's emotion regulation during toddlerhood and, subsequently, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in middle childhood. Fathers and their 8-month-old infants ( = 124) were followed over time to obtain home observations of parenting quality at 8 and 24 months, laboratory observations of children's emotion regulation at 24 months, and teacher reports of children's ADHD symptoms at 7 years. A path analysis revealed that fathers' emotional disengagement in infancy and minimizing responses to children's distress in toddlerhood forecast children's development of ADHD symptoms in middle childhood.

Longitudinal associations between specific types of emotional reactivity and psychological, physical health, and school adjustment.

Using a multimethod, multiinformant longitudinal design, we examined associations between specific forms of positive and negative emotional reactivity at age 5, children's effortful control (EC), emotion regulation, and social skills at age 7, and adolescent functioning across psychological, academic, and physical health domains at ages 15/16 ( = 383). We examined how distinct components of childhood emotional reactivity directly and indirectly predict domain-specific forms of adolescent adjustment, thereby identifying developmental pathways between specific types of emotional reactivity and adjustment above and beyond the propensity to express other forms of emotional reactivity. Age 5 high-intensity positivity was associated with lower age 7 EC and more adolescent risk-taking; age 5 low-intensity positivity was associated with better age 7 EC and adolescent cardiovascular health, providing evidence for the heterogeneity of positive emotional reactivity.

Mother and child hair cortisol during the COVID-19 pandemic: Associations among physiological stress, pandemic-related behaviors, and child emotional-behavioral health.

The current study assessed the associations between pandemic-related stressors and physiological stress, as indexed by hair cortisol concentration (HCC), for mothers and their children (N = 180) aged 5-14-years old (M = 8.91). The associations between maternal HCC and children's HCC and children's behavioral adjustment were also examined.

Pubertal stress recalibration and later social and emotional adjustment among adolescents: The role of early life stress.

The current study investigated whether recalibration of the hypothalamic-pituitary -adrenocortical (HPA) axis stress response in youth who had previously experienced early life stress (ELS) would predict socioemotional adjustment in a follow-up assessment approximately 2-4 years later when youth were 12- to 21-years old. The sample consisted of previously institutionalized (PI) (N = 96) youth and a comparison non-adopted (NA) group (N = 117). Youth were 16 years old on average at the time of the follow-up assessment.

Measurement of Behavioral Emotion Regulation Strategies in Early Childhood: The Early Emotion Regulation Behavior Questionnaire (EERBQ).

The Early Emotion Regulation Behavior Questionnaire (EERBQ) assesses children's emotion regulation (ER) behavioral strategies in both positive and negative emotional contexts. Psychometric properties and factor structure were tested in a sample of caregivers across the United States ( = 362) with children ages 2-6 years-old (56% male; 73% White). Findings suggest that the EERBQ is psychometrically sound and correlates with other well-established measures of children's socioemotional functioning.

Cortisol Reactivity and Socially Anxious Behavior in Previously Institutionalized Youth.

The current study investigated the association between cortisol stress reactivity to a social stressor and observed socially anxious behaviors both concurrently and over time among previously institutionalized (PI) (N = 132; ages 7-17) youth and a comparison non-adopted (NA) sample (N = 176). Cortisol reactivity was captured during the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C; Yim et al., 2015) and youths' social anxiety behaviors were coded during the speech portion of the TSST-C.

Private Speech and the Development of Self-Regulation: The Importance of Temperamental Anger.

In this study (N=160), we observed children's private (i.e., self-directed) speech (PS) during a challenging puzzle task at age 3 and assessed whether the amount and maturity of their PS predicted their inhibitory control (IC) at age 4 and indirectly emotion regulation at age 9.

Associations between stress reactivity and behavior problems for previously institutionalized youth across puberty.

Megan Gunnar's pubertal stress recalibration hypothesis was supported in a recent study of previously institutionalized (PI) youth such that increases in pubertal stage were associated with increases in cortisol stress reactivity. This work provides evidence that puberty may open up a window of recalibration for PI youth, resulting in a shift from a blunted to a more typical cortisol stress response. Using the same sample (N = 132), the current study aimed to elucidate whether increases in cortisol are associated with increases in adaptive functioning or whether they further underlie potential links to developmental psychopathology.

Relations between frontal EEG maturation and inhibitory control in preschool in the prediction of children's early academic skills.

Maturation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) across the first few years of life is thought to underlie the emergence of inhibitory control (IC) abilities, which may play an important role in children's early academic success. In this growth curve modeling study (N = 364), we assessed developmental change in children's resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) activity (6-9 Hz 'alpha' power) from 10 months to 4 years and examined whether the initial levels or amount of change in frontal alpha power were associated with children's IC at age 4 and indirectly academic skills at age 6. Results indicated that greater increases in frontal alpha power across the study period were associated with better IC, and indirectly with better performance on Woodcock-Johnson tests of reading and math achievement at age 6.

Maternal socialization of child emotion and adolescent adjustment: Indirect effects through emotion regulation.

A fundamental question in developmental science is how parental emotion socialization processes are associated with children's subsequent adaptation. Few extant studies have examined this question across multiple developmental periods and levels of analysis. Here, we tested whether mothers' supportive and nonsupportive reactions to their 5-year-old children's negative emotions were associated with teacher and adolescent self-reported adjustment at age 15 via children's physiological and behavioral emotion regulation at age 10 (N = 404).

Developmental patterns of respiratory sinus arrhythmia from toddlerhood to adolescence.

Parasympathetic nervous system functioning as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is widely used as a measure of physiological regulation. We examined developmental patterns of children's resting RSA and RSA reactivity from 2 to 15 years of age, a period of time that is marked by considerable advances in children's regulatory abilities. Physiological data were collected from a community sample of 270 children (116 males) during a resting period and during a frustration laboratory task when the children were 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 15 years old.

Cognitive-affective strategies and cortisol stress reactivity in children and adolescents: Normative development and effects of early life stress.

This study examined cognitive-affective strategies as predictors of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis responses to a social-evaluative stressor in adolescence as compared to late childhood as a function of early life experiences. Participants included 159 children (9-10 years) and adolescents (15-16 years) divided into two groups based on early care experiences: non-adopted youth raised in their birth families (n = 81) and post-institutionalized youth internationally adopted from orphanage care (n = 78). Youth completed a version of the Trier Social Stress Test modified for use with children and reported on their trait emotion regulation and coping strategies.

Emotion regulation and cortisol reactivity during a social evaluative stressor: A study of post-institutionalized youth.

In the current study, we compared emotion regulation abilities between post-institutionalized (PI; N = 124) and never-institutionalized non-adopted (NA; N = 172) children and adolescents (7-15 years). We assessed cortisol reactivity and coded emotion regulation during the speech portion of Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-M). Parents reported on their children's social, academic, and behavioral adjustment.

Temperamental Anger and Positive Reactivity and the Development of Social Skills: Implications for Academic Competence during Preadolescence.

Research Findings: This study examines whether the development of social skills during childhood serves as a mechanism through which temperamental anger and positive reactivity in toddlerhood influences children's academic competence during preadolescence (N = 406). Temperamental anger at age 2 was negatively associated with children's social skills at age 7; in turn, children's social skills at age 7 were negatively associated with teacher report of academic competence and child and teacher report of school problems at age 10. All three indirect effects were significant suggesting that children's social skills at age 7 is one mechanism through which temperamental anger at age 2 is associated with age 10 child- and teacher-reported school problems.

Comparison of Institutionally Reared and Maltreated Children on Socioemotional and Biological Functioning.

The current study compared behavioral and adrenocortical functioning of maltreated ( = 91) and comparably aged (1.5-3 years) institutionally-reared children soon after (1.5-2.

Childhood self-regulation as a mechanism through which early overcontrolling parenting is associated with adjustment in preadolescence.

We examined longitudinal associations across an 8-year time span between overcontrolling parenting during toddlerhood, self-regulation during early childhood, and social, emotional, and academic adjustment in preadolescence (N = 422). Overcontrolling parenting, emotion regulation (ER), and inhibitory control (IC) were observed in the laboratory; preadolescent adjustment was teacher-reported and child self-reported. Results from path analysis indicated that overcontrolling parenting at age 2 was associated negatively with ER and IC at age 5, which, in turn, were associated with more child-reported emotional and school problems, fewer teacher-reported social skills, and less teacher-reported academic productivity at age 10.

Cardiac vagal regulation in infancy predicts executive function and social competence in preschool: Indirect effects through language.

Parasympathetic nervous system functioning in infancy may serve a foundational role in the development of cognitive and socioemotional skills (Calkins, 2007). In this study (N = 297), we investigated the potential indirect effects of cardiac vagal regulation in infancy on children's executive functioning and social competence in preschool via expressive and receptive language in toddlerhood. Vagal regulation was assessed at 10 months during two attention conditions (social, nonsocial) via task-related changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA).

Self-regulation as a predictor of patterns of change in externalizing behaviors from infancy to adolescence.

We examined associations between specific self-regulatory mechanisms and externalizing behavior patterns from ages 2 to 15 (N = 443). The relation between multiple self-regulatory indicators across multiple domains (i.e.

Developmental Cascade and Transactional Associations Among Biological and Behavioral Indicators of Temperament and Maternal Behavior.

An empirical model of temperament that assessed transactional and cascade associations between respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), negative affectivity, and the caregiving environment (i.e., maternal intrusiveness) across three time points during infancy (N = 388) was examined.

Mothers' and Fathers' Reports of their Supportive Responses to their Children's Negative Emotions over Time.

Objective: Parents' emotion socialization practices are thought to be moderately stable over time; however, a partner's socialization practices could initiate change.

Design: We examined mothers' and fathers' reports of their supportive responses to their children's negative emotions when the target child was 7 years old and again at age 10. We tested a dyadic, longitudinal path model with 111 mother-father pairs.

Indirect Effects of Emotion Regulation on Peer Acceptance and Rejection:The Roles of Positive and Negative Social Behaviors.

A growing body of literature indicates that childhood emotion regulation predicts later success with peers, yet little is known about the processes through which this association occurs. The current study examined mechanisms through which emotion regulation was associated with later peer acceptance and peer rejection, controlling for earlier acceptance and rejection. Data included mother-, teacher-, and peer-reports on 338 children (55% girls, 68% European American) at ages 7 and 10.