Longitudinal implications of children’s attentional and behavioral regulation: Positive paths to adolescents’ social skills and functioning for among low-income families

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Self-regulation is a multidimensional construct that underlies the ability to control our thoughts and actions. While the benefits of early self-regulation for later social competence and adaptive functioning are well established (Lerner et al., 2011; Moffitt et al., 2011), the specificity of the mechanisms across childhood are still unclear and there is evidence that they may vary by facet of self-regulation (Morgan et al., 2019) and income status (Razza et al., 2010). Notably, self-regulation may be particularly critical for resiliency among youth from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, as these skills contribute to a positive trajectory that sets them about from their peers (Buckner et al., 2003; 2009). Thus, the goal of the present study is to elucidate the pathways from both behavioral and attentional regulation at age 5 to social competence and adaptive behavior at age 15 among an ethnically and economically diverse sample.
Participants (n = 1,845) included adolescents from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who had data from home visits and maternal interviews at age 5 and youth reports at age 15. Several models were tested using multi-group structural equation modeling with bootstrapping to explore the mediating paths and pathway differences across family income categories using AMOS 26. Three groups were created based on participants’ family income with (1) poor from family income below the federal poverty line, (2) near-poor from family income above the poverty line but within 300%, and (3) non-poor from family income above 300% of the poverty line. At age 5, adjusted correct scores from the Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised was used to assess attentional regulation and behavioral regulation was measured using maternal report from the Child Behavior Checklist (dimensions of impulsivity, aggression, and attention span. Adolescent social skills were measured with items from the Express Subscale of the Adaptive Social Behavior Inventory (ASBI) and the Assertion scale of the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). Lastly, adolescents’ functioning was captured by 20 items (five dimensions) from the Positive Adolescent Functioning (EPOCH). These scales showed satisfactory reliability with Cronbach’s  ranges from .75 to .79.
Using full information maximum likelihood estimation, the results indicated that the models fit the data well (Figure 1). Attentional regulation linked with social skills ( = .065) with marginal significance for children from the poor group. Behavioral regulation was significantly associated with social skills for near-poor group ( = .06) and non-poor group ( = .132). The mediation linkages from both attentional regulation and behavioral regulation through social skills to positive functioning were found to be significant for poor and near-poor groups. Only the pathway from behavioral regulation was found to be significant for the non-poor group adolescents (see Table 1).
This study provided empirical evidence to support that attentional and behavioral regulation has long-term implications for adolescents’ social skills and positive functioning. Moreover, the results indicate that while early behavioral regulation has significant implications for children across all income levels, the effect of attentional regulation is particularly significant for children from low-income families.

Authors

• Ying Zhang, Clarkson University
  Presenting Author

• Rachel A Razza, Syracuse University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Qingyang Liu, Syracuse University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Staceyann Reid, SUNY Oswego
  Non-Presenting Author

• Caitlin S. Smith, Syracuse University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jane Uzcategui, Syracuse University
  Non-Presenting Author