Poster #8 - Social-Emotional Development for Children with Identified Developmental Concerns: The Impact of Parenting and Executive Function

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Social-emotional skills and executive function at preschool are critical for children’s school readiness and long-term success in future relationships and academic achievement (Curby et al., 2015; Sasser et al., 2015). Unfortunately, young children who are at increased risk due to socioeconomic factors and identified developmental concerns are more likely to have poor social-emotional development (van Staveren et al., 2014). Existing literature demonstrates that parenting is related to executive function and social-emotional development (Martí et al., 2016; Towe-Goodman et al., 2014). However, the associations among executive function, parenting behaviors, and social-emotional development are not fully understood.

The purpose of this study is to examine (a) bidirectional associations between parenting behaviors, executive function and social-emotional skills; and (b) executive function as an explanatory mechanism for the predictive relationship between parenting behaviors and children’s social-emotional development.

The sample included 231 low-income preschool children identified to have developmental concerns upon preschool entry and their parents from Midwestern communities who were part of a larger randomized trial of a parent engagement intervention (see Table 1).

Parenting behaviors were observationally assessed through video-recorded parent–child interactions using the Parent Child Interaction System (Deater-Deckard, Pylas, & Petrill, 1997). Parenting behaviors include reciprocity (i.e., engaging in turn taking with child); conflict (i.e., arguing or displaying negative affect toward child); and cooperation (i.e., engaging in explicit discussion with child about how to proceed during play). Children’s executive function was measured via teacher report on the Brief Rating Inventory for Executive Function-Preschool (Giois, Espy, & Isquith, 2003). Children’s social-emotional skills were observationally coded using the Child Behavior Coding scale (Clarke & Kwon, 2009). Children’s social-emotional skills include: persistence (i.e., attempting solutions); compliance (i.e., following parent’s requests); positive affect (i.e., expression of global positive feelings); avoidance of parent (i.e., attempts to withdraw physically and emotionally from parent); and distractibility (i.e., maintaining attention to the situation).

All variables were assessed during fall and spring of the child’s two years of preschool. Preliminary analyses were conducted using baseline data. Regression analyses identified significant associations between parenting behavior, child executive function, and child social-emotional skills (See Table 2). Children’s observed persistence, compliance, and positive affect were most explained by regression models including parenting behaviors and children’s executive function. For example, greater child persistence was predicted by more reciprocity and cooperation displayed by parents during interactions with their child and fewer teacher-reported concerns about the child’s executive function. Further, greater child avoidance of parent was predicted by less reciprocity and more conflict behaviors displayed by the parent and more teacher-reported concerns about the child’s executive function.

Controlling for treatment group and nesting within teachers, follow-up analysis will be conducted using cross-lagged models to examine the relation between parenting behaviors, children’s executive function and children’s social-emotional skills across two years of preschool. Findings will inform our understanding of theories of change for child development and how dynamic processes interact with one another in children with developmental concerns. Interventions can be tailored to promote executive function and social-emotional skills at an early age through improved parent-child interactions.

Authors

• Courtney Boise, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Lisa Knoche, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author