2-167 - Multi-dimensional Approaches in Assessing Emotion Regulation in Early Childhood

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Emotion regulation (ER) is one of the key components of psychological well-being and plays a particularly important role in developmental outcomes. Children’s ER skills contribute to early academic success, promote social competence, and are inversely related to symptoms of psychopathology. ER undergoes rapid development during early childhood, yet there is a lack of comprehensive methods that incorporate both the rich strategies children are able to employ and the biological underpinnings of this fundamental skill. Innovative assessments that capture ER strategies, both behaviorally and physiologically, are systematically explored in this symposium. Using an experimental paradigm, the first paper investigates whether preschool children are able to intentionally up- and down-regulate emotional expression on command. Findings have the capacity to identify at what point in development preschoolers can begin to utilize specific regulatory strategies, and how different ER components relate to adaptive functioning. The second paper extends the growing idea that the most adaptive ER strategy may be the ability to be emotionally flexible by examining the late positive potential (LPP), a neurocognitive marker underlying ER flexibility in children. The final paper outlines the complexity and richness of implementing multiple ER measures that vary in methodological techniques with a diverse sample of children. Taken together, these papers highlight novel perspectives in conceptualizing ER across development in early childhood. Perhaps if interventions designed to selectively shape ER strategies are helpful, parents and teachers can continue to bolster more nuanced ER skills as a protective factor.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Katie Kao, Harvard Medical School, Brazelton Touchpoints Center

Discussant

• Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Hunter College, The City University of New York

Individual Presentations

• Show Me How You Feel on Your Face: Preschool Children’s Capacity to Modulate Emotional Expression - Presenting Author: Katie Kao, Harvard Medical School, Brazelton Touchpoints Center; Non-Presenting Author: Amanda Tarullo, Boston University

• Parental Proximity and Cognitive Scaffolding Bolster a Neurocognitive Measure of Child Emotion Regulation Flexibility - Presenting Author: Sarah Myruski, NYU Lagone Medical Center; Non-Presenting Author: Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Hunter College, The City University of New York

• Conceptual and Methodological Challenges to Characterizing Children’s Emotion Regulation Strategy Use - Presenting Author: Elizabeth L Davis, University of California, Riverside; Non-Presenting Author: Parisa Parsafar, University of California, Riverside