Poster #12 - Impact of Toddler Child and Maternal Factors on Early Childhood Self-Regulation Behaviors

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Self-regulation (SR) is the ability to modulate one’s own behaviors, thoughts, and internal states in a manner appropriate for the current context (Bell & Deater-Deckard, 2007). SR abilities develop rapidly across the early years, with parenting behaviors a major influence on early SR (Bridgett et al., 2018). For example, negative maternal moods exacerbate irritability in more temperamentally negative toddlers (NICHD, 2004). Of course, parenting behaviors co-occur with early developing intrinsic factors associated with SR, such as the development of temperament-related attentional processes and later effortful control (EC; Sheese et al., 2008). During the second year, an increase in the amount of vocabulary is related to increasing SR (Ayoub & Vallotton, 2011). In general, the pattern for SR development is from external regulation by parent to reliance on self (Bernier et al., 2010). Yet parenting influences on early SR remain critical even after children begin to increasingly rely on their own effortful attention and language for regulating behavior.

We examined the influence of parenting behaviors, toddler EC, and toddler vocabulary at 24 months on SR at 36 months. We focused on the very early childhood years because this period of SR development sets the stage for individual differences in SR across a wide range of regulatory domains (Calkins, 2007). We focused specifically on vocabulary size because of wide-ranging individual differences in vocabulary development at 24 months and implications for early SR development and examined whether those associations were moderated by either parenting behaviors or toddler EC.

Participants were 192 mother-child dyads. At 24m, mothers reported in child vocabulary total words produced (TWP) using the MDCI (Bates et al., 1994) and child EC using the ECBQ (Putnam et al., 2004). Maternal parenting behaviors were coded during interaction tasks. Given links between negative parenting behaviors and difficulties in child SR, we focused on maternal negative affect, intrusiveness, and directiveness and created a maternal negative interaction (MNI) composite variable. At 36m, child SR was assessed during the Crayon Delay task (Calkins, 1997). The delay was 120 seconds (“don’t touch!”) and the coding scale ranged from 1 = colors with crayons to 7 = does not touch crayons or paper.

Hierarchical linear regression was used to predict 36m SR. Step 1 included 24m EC and TWP; Step 2 included 24m MNI; and Step 3 included interaction terms combining the 3 predictors. We interpreted Step 3 [F(3,185) = 6.09, p = <.001], accounting for a total 8% of variance in 36m SR. The interactions of TWP and MNI (p=.002), and TWP and EC (p=.01) were significant. Simple slopes testing (PROCESS 3.5, Hayes 2017) showed that TWP positively predicted SR only when EC was low (Figure 1) and TWP positively predicted SR when MNI was low but negatively predicted when MNI was high (Figure 2). Findings suggest that early vocabulary development can be used to mitigate regulation issues from low EC. These findings highlight both the importance of language in early SR, as well as the range of influences that interact in SR development.

Authors

• Cheyenne Williams, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  Presenting Author

• Martha Ann Bell, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University