1-214 - Self-Regulation and Early School Success: New Perspectives and Methodologies

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Over the past 30 years, a large body of research has provided evidence of the importance of self-regulatory abilities for school readiness and early school success (cf., Eisenberg, Valiente, & Eggum, 2011) and more recent research has demonstrated the capacity for early childhood education programs to foster these abilities (cf., Raver et al., 2009). It has become clear that in order to advance our understanding of this critical process in early childhood, future research must adopt a holistic definition of self-regulation that encompasses multiple levels of organization – neurological/neurophysiological, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive. In addition, it is crucial that researchers examine the role of self-regulation as both an outcome of early education programs as well as a predictor of subsequent educational outcomes. Together, the papers included in this symposium represent a first step in this new line of research, offering different perspectives on self-regulatory processes in young children by treating these processes as an outcome of early education and as a predictor – conditional or unconditional – of educational outcomes. Our group of speakers include applied researchers as well as scholars working inside academia, who are examining the various roles of self-regulation across different levels of organization and utilizing diverse methodologies. The goal of our symposium is to catalyze the next steps in this research to attract an audience of similar diversity, from which will emerge new collaborations among researchers studying self-regulation at different levels of organization, and in different roles in both basic/laboratory and applied/naturalistic contexts.

Sub Unit

• School Readiness/Childcare

Chairs

• Cathi Propper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Steven Holochwost, WolfBrown

Individual Presentations

• Caregiver-Child Interactions Predict Behavioral Regulation in Young Children - Presenting Author: Laura Scharphorn, Center for Early Education Research and Evaluation (CEERE), HighScope Educational Research Foundation

• Parasympathetic Nervous System Activity During Hot and Cool Measures of Self-Regulation Predicts School Readiness - Presenting Author: Steven Holochwost, WolfBrown; Non-Presenting Author: Cathi Propper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Non-Presenting Author: Guan Wang, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer L Coffman, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Observed Peer Problems Moderate Links between Self-Regulation and Academic Achievement in Preschool - Presenting Author: Nicholas Wagner, Boston University; Non-Presenting Author: Christina Danko, University of Maryland; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer L Coffman, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Non-Presenting Author: Cathi Propper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill