Poster #8 - The Interplay Between Parenting and Child Temperament in Associations with Children's Executive Function

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Most research on children’s executive function (EF) has focused on the influence of broad parenting dimensions (e.g., sensitivity, harshness). Knowledge of which parenting contexts are the most critical for children’s EF is lacking, and greater specificity could clarify clinical targets. Grusec and Davidov’s (2010) domain approach proposes that parenting serves differentiated functions in children’s development depending on the domain (i.e., context) of the parent-child interaction. From this perspective, we examined associations among three parenting domains and children’s EF. We expected that the guided learning domain would be uniquely related to children’s EF in comparison to two less relevant domains (reciprocity, control). Prior research on children’s EF has assumed that parenting operates similarly across all children (Fay-Stammbach et al., 2014). However, per differential susceptibility theory (Belsky & Pluess, 2009) children with heightened temperamental emotionality benefit more from high quality social inputs and fare the worst under less optimal conditions compared to their less emotional peers. Integrating both theories, we tested whether child temperamental emotionality (surgency, negative affect (NA)) “selectively” moderated the link between guided learning and children’s EF in a ‘for better’ and ‘for worse’ manner.

Sample. Participants were 150 mothers and their 5–year-old children (50% male). The sample was moderately diverse (35% on public assistance, 32% were ethnic minorities).

Method. Mother-child dyads participated in grocery store (guided learning), free-play (reciprocity), and cleanup (control) tasks, which captured each parenting domain. Maternal scaffolding and child scaffolding needs during the grocery store task, sensitivity and warmth/support during free-play, and effective discipline and indulgent-permissiveness (reverse coded) during cleanup were assessed via observer ratings on the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales and other coding schemes (Gauvain & Perez, 2008). Temperament was measured via maternal report on the Child Behavior Questionnaire. Children were administered standard EF and general cognitive ability assessments.

Results. SEM was used to analyze our models. Demographic covariates were included. General cognitive ability was included as an additional outcome to increase specificity. Higher quality guided learning was associated with higher child EF, but was not associated with general cognitive ability. The other parenting domains were not associated with children’s EF or general cognitive ability. There was a significant interaction between guided learning and surgency on children’s EF. Simple slope analyses revealed that high surgency children had better EF than those low in surgency under higher quality guided learning conditions, but worse EF under lower quality guided learning contexts, which was consistent with differential susceptibility according to Roisman et al. (2012)’s statistical criteria. Guided learning was not related to EF for low surgency children. There was also a significant interaction between control and NA on children’s EF. Unexpectedly, children low in NA benefited more from higher quality control practices with respect to their EF. Control was not associated with EF for children high in NA.

Discussion. We will discuss how findings indicate that the domain-specificity of parenting for children’s EF depends on child temperament. Results could indicate that parenting interventions aimed toward promoting children’s EF should be specifically tailored to children's temperament.

Authors

• Jennifer Suor, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author

• Melissa Sturge-Apple, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author