Emotion Regulation In Young Children Research Articles

The JASPER (Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement and Regulation) Intervention in Down Syndrome: A pilot study

BackgroundChildren with Down syndrome (DS) often need support building language, socialization, and regulation, yet few receive behavioral intervention for this. The Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement and Regulation (JASPER) intervention holds promise as a clinician-caregiver-mediated approach. AimsThe aims of this pilot study were to (1) describe the behavioral phenotype of children with DS (2) quantify change in child engagement following JASPER receipt, (3) measure caregiver adoption of JASPER strategies, and (4) generate hypotheses and directions for future research. Methods and proceduresSixteen toddlers with DS and their caregivers enrolled in the study. Dyads were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: immediate intervention or waitlist control. During the COVID-19 pandemic, intervention was delivered remotely. Outcomes and resultsCaregivers learned to implement JASPER strategies and pilot data suggest improvements in joint engagement and regulation during play. Case series data show individual heterogeneity of intervention response. Remote intervention delivery may be associated with greater participant retention. Conclusions and implicationsJASPER may be a viable treatment option to improve joint engagement and emotion regulation in young children with DS. Parents appear receptive to learning and implementing JASPER strategies at home. Remote JASPER delivery may improve participation in research or treatment programs.

어머니의 양육태도와 유아의 정서조절능력이 유아의 문제행동에 미치는 영향

Objectives In this study, we aimed to examine how maternal parenting attitudes and young children's emotion regulation abilities influence problem behaviors in young children.
 Methods For the study, 291 young children aged 3-5 years old and 291 mothers enrolled in a daycare center located in G city were surveyed from December 12, 2022 to January 8, 2023. A questionnaire survey was conducted on attitude, emotional regulation ability of young children, and problem behaviors of young children. For the collected data, Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to analyze the correlation between each variable using the SPSS 21.0 program, and multiple regression analysis was performed to analyze the effect relationship of the variables.
 Results The analysis results are as follows. Firstly, it was found that the mother's parenting attitude and the young children's emotional regulation ability were correlated with the young children's problem behavior. Secondly, in the relative explanatory power of independent variables that affect young children's intrinsic problem behaviors, negative emotional expression, affectionate, controlling, and rejecting influences in the order shown. In the relative explanatory power of independent variables that affect extrinsic problem behaviors of young children, affectionate, negative emotional expression, controlling, and positive emotional expression were found to have an effect in the order.
 Conclusions This study provides valuable information on the variables affecting young children's problem behaviors, such as maternal parenting attitudes and young children's emotion regulation abilities. It can serve as foundational data to enhance maternal parenting attitudes and young children's emotion regulation abilities, which, in turn, may help improve young children's problem behaviors.

Parent-partner and parent-child attachment: Links to children's emotion regulation

We investigate the interconnections between couple and parenting relationships and young children's emotion regulation across time. Our goals were to: (1) examine whether mothers' and fathers' attachment security towards their romantic partners relates to mothers- and fathers-child attachment quality; (2) investigate the bidirectional relations between mother- and father-child attachment quality, and children's emotion regulation. We followed 206 children (95 girls, Mage = 4.01 years, SD = 0.57), their mothers, and fathers over 3-time points during the preschool period. Parents reported attachment security towards their romantic partner and the quality of their attachment relationships with the child. Teachers reported children's emotion regulation. Results from a dyadic cross-lagged panel model indicated a consistent negative association between mothers' and fathers' insecure attachment and parents-child attachment quality. Despite some variations according to children's sex and age, overall, findings suggest that a higher father- and mother-child attachment quality links to children's higher emotion regulation abilities.

Altered Gut Microbiota Composition Is Associated with Difficulty in Explicit Emotion Regulation in Young Children.

Executive function (EF) consists of explicit emotion regulation (EER) and cognitive control (CC). Childhood EER in particular predicts mental and physical health in adulthood. Identifying factors affecting EER development has implications for lifelong physical and mental health. Gut microbiota (GM) has attracted attention as a potential biomarker for risk of physical and mental problems in adulthood. Furthermore, GM is related to brain function/structure, which plays a crucial role in emotional processing. However, little is known about how GM compositions are associated with the development of emotion regulation in early childhood. Therefore, in this study, we examined 257 children aged 3-4 to investigate links between GM and risk to EF. EF was measured using the Mother-Reported Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool version. GM composition (alpha/beta diversity and genus abundance) was evaluated using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and compared between EF-risk and non-risk groups. Our results show that children with EER-risk (an index of inhibitory self-control) had a higher abundance of the genera Actinomyces and Sutterella. Although we have not established a direct link between GM and CC risk, our findings indicate that GM of preschoolers is closely associated with emotional processing and that EERrisk children have more inflammation-related bacteria.

Emotional Regulation and Language in Young Children With and Without Autism Traits

Language ability has been associated with emotion regulation (ER) ability. Children on the autism spectrum have greater rates of language delays and lower ER ability. Despite this, autism traits have not been considered or controlled for in past research. This study therefore examined the association between language ability and ER in young children with and without autism traits. An exploratory analysis was also conducted to examine the types of ER strategies used by young children with autism traits compared with young children without such traits. Ninety mother–toddler dyads participated in the study. Results showed greater receptive language ability was significantly associated with greater parent-reported ER ability both when children with, and children without, autism traits were included in the sample. Furthermore, greater expressive language ability was significantly associated with greater observed ER but only when children with autism traits were excluded from the analysis. These findings have clinical implications for early intervention development for both children with and without autism traits.

(Not) getting what you want: frustration and emotion regulation in children with sex chromosome trisomies.

The presence of an additional X or Y chromosome (sex chromosome trisomies, SCT) is associated with an increased risk for neurodevelopmental difficulties, including socio-emotional problems, across the life span. Studying emotion regulation in young children with SCT could signal deviations in emotional development that serve as risk markers to guide clinical care. This study explored the presence and variety of emotion regulation strategies in 75 SCT children and 81 population-based controls, aged 1-7 years, during a frustration-inducing event in which physiological (heart rate) and observational data (behavioral responses) were collected. Children with SCT were equally physiologically aroused by the event as compared to controls. However, they showed more emotion regulation difficulties in terms of behavior compared to controls that were not explicable in terms of differences in general intellectual functioning. Specifically, they had a more limited range of behavioral alternatives and tended to rely longer on inefficient strategies with increasing age. The field of practice should be made aware of these early risk findings regarding emotion regulation in SCT, which may potentially lay the foundation for later socio-emotional problems, given the significant impact of emotion regulation on child and adult mental health outcomes. The current results may help to design tailored interventions to reduce the impact of the additional sex chromosome on adaptive functioning, psychopathology, and quality of life.

Dynamic associations between emotion expressions and strategy use in Chinese American and Mexican American preschoolers.

Previous studies of emotion regulation in young children commonly used between-person approaches, which limit our understanding of dynamic and temporal relations between emotion expressions and strategy use. Further, previous work has mainly focused on temperamental reactivity among White children, and it is unclear whether these findings can generalize to children of Asian and Latinx origins. In the current study, we examined the within-person temporal associations between emotion expressions and strategy use among 3- to 5-year-old children in low-income Chinese American (CA) and Mexican American (MA) families. Children's emotion expressions (positive and negative) and strategy use (gaze aversion, self-soothing, fidgeting, and language) during an unfair social interaction task were coded by 10-s epoch. Executive functions were examined as between-person level predictors of strategy use. Multilevel modeling was conducted to examine whether positive and negative emotion expressions at one epoch (t-1) predicted strategy use at the following epoch (t). The results indicate that positive emotion expressions predicted an increase in fidgeting at the next epoch (β = .34, p < .01). Executive functions were unrelated to strategy use. Cultural group differences were found: CA children displayed lower intensity of positive emotion and fewer strategy use compared with MA children. The present findings inform theories on the dynamics of emotion regulation in young children and have implications for interventions with underrepresented immigrant populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Mother–Child Language Style Predicts Internalizing Behaviors in Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence

Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with children's internalizing and externalizing problems. IPV is thought to impair mothers' ability to scaffold young children's emotion regulation through coregulated interactions. Mother–child language style matching (LSM) is an index of coregulation that has yet to be examined in IPV-exposed samples. We hypothesized that LSM would mediate the association between IPV and children's behavioral problems. Participants were 194 mother–child dyads. IPV was assessed annually when children were ages 1–4. LSM was derived from speech during a free-play interaction at age 4, and children's behavior problems were assessed concurrently and again at age 10. Chronic IPV exposure in early life was associated with lower levels of mother–child LSM. LSM also mediated the association between IPV and later internalizing problems. These findings provide evidence that mother–child LSM may be a useful index of parent–child interaction quality in the context of IPV.

Promoting emotion regulation in young children with autism via parent-mediated intervention: lessons learned from an initial investigation

Emotion regulation is critical for mental health and social competence. Many children with autism spectrum disorder struggle to regulate emotions yet there are few evidence-based programs to support this skill. This study examined whether parent-mediated intervention for emotion regulation holds promise in improving this skill among young children with autism spectrum disorder. A multiple probe single-case design evaluated potential efficacy with five parent-child dyads. Results of visual analyses generally did not support effects of the intervention on parent support for emotion regulation and children’s demonstration of this skill in semi-structured tasks. However, follow-up interviews indicated that parents found the intervention useful and applied strategies in daily life. Parent interview data suggested a broad range of child treatment responses.

“How does the broader construct of self-regulation relate to emotion regulation in young children?”

In this paper, we address how the concept of self-regulation relates to emotion regulation in young children. We define self-regulation as the ability to regulate one’s emotions, attention, behavior, and cognition, and emotion regulation as the intrinsic processes used to manage and change one’s experience of emotions, emotion-related states, and the behavioral expression of emotions. “Hot” and “cool” processes of self-regulation, and the two primary theoretical perspectives on self-regulation, executive functioning and effortful control are then discussed, delineating the primary dimensions of each, and how both intersect with emotion regulation. Although theory and research on emotion regulation and self-regulation is not typically integrated, conceptually, we view self-regulation as a broader construct within which the intrinsic aspects of emotion regulation are included. Our attempt to integrate both self-regulation perspectives with emotion regulation includes explaining how inhibitory control (a primary executive functioning and effortful control skill) relates to the regulation of emotion, the relative emphasis of emotion and cognition in each theory, and the distinction between automatic (often described as “hot”) and conscious (“cool”) regulation processes. We then recommend an integration of the theoretical perspectives and employment of multi-method assessment regulation strategies. In addition to using both parent-rated and lab-based observational methods, ongoing and future work in this area will incorporate both executive functioning and effortful control assessments, and neurophysiological measures. One final future research direction will be to focus on emotion regulation and emotional reactivity in the same longitudinal investigations during early childhood, examining optimal regulation for best moderating emotional reactions.

Intervening to shape children’s emotion regulation: A review of emotion socialization parenting programs for young children.

Emotion regulation patterns are shaped, in part, by the quality of interpersonal interactions during early development. Given the important contribution of caregiver emotion socialization, parenting programs targeting these socialization practices represent an effective method of preventative intervention for childhood difficulties with emotion regulation. This review examines emotion socialization parenting programs that target the development of emotion regulation in young children aged 0-6. Through a systematic search of multiple databases, 1117 articles were retrieved for title, abstract, and full-text screening. After screening, 12 articles remained and were summarized using a narrative approach. Herein, we provide an overview of 3 main intervention frameworks: Tuning in to Kids (TIK), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy-Emotion Development (PCIT-ED), and Emotion Enhanced Triple P (EETP). Overall, these emotion socialization programs have demonstrated efficacy in their ability to improve parenting behaviors related to the coaching of young children's emotion regulation; however, there has been limited examination of their effectiveness in promoting children's emotion regulation. Future research is required to address this limitation, with rigorous parenting intervention studies incorporating valid assessments of children's emotion regulation in order to promote children's development of adaptive emotion regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural correlates of early deliberate emotion regulation: Young children’s responses to interpersonal scaffolding

Deliberate emotion regulation, the ability to willfully modulate emotional experiences, is shaped through interpersonal scaffolding and forecasts later functioning in multiple domains. However, nascent deliberate emotion regulation in early childhood is poorly understood due to a paucity of studies that simulate interpersonal scaffolding of this skill and measure its occurrence in multiple modalities. Our goal was to identify neural and behavioral components of early deliberate emotion regulation to identify patterns of competent and deficient responses. A novel probe was developed to assess deliberate emotion regulation in young children. Sixty children (age 4–6 years) were randomly assigned to deliberate emotion regulation or control conditions. Children completed a frustration task while lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) activation was recorded via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Facial expressions were video recorded and children self-rated their emotions. Parents rated their child’s temperamental emotion regulation. Deliberate emotion regulation interpersonal scaffolding predicted a significant increase in frustration-related LPFC activation not seen in controls. Better temperamental emotion regulation predicted larger LPFC activation increases post- scaffolding among children who engaged in deliberate emotion regulation interpersonal scaffolding. A capacity to increase LPFC activation in response to interpersonal scaffolding may be a crucial neural correlate of early deliberate emotion regulation.

Associations between child physical abuse potential, observed maternal parenting, and young children's emotion regulation: Is participation in Early Head Start protective?

Clinicians working with Early Head Start (EHS) families consider family well-being and positive parent-child relationships as foundational to school readiness. Understanding the links between risk factors and these dimensions of family engagement can inform clinical decision-making, as risk assessments are used to tailoring program services. The current study examined the associations between high risk, or potential, for child physical abuse and both parenting quality and children's emotion regulation (ER) during toddlerhood; EHS participation was examined as a buffer. The sample included EHS-eligible mothers of infants (N = 80) drawn from one site of the EHS Research and Evaluation Project. Associations were tested between mothers' potential for child physical abuse, measured during infancy, and observed maternal sensitivity, positive regard, harshness, and children's ER skills at child ages 1 and 2 years. Results indicated that high potential for child physical abuse was associated with lower positive regard at age 1 and lower ER skills at age 2. EHS participation operated as a buffer on each of these associations. Implications for screening for child physical abuse potential and the constructs it represents in clinical settings as well as how EHS can promote family engagement are discussed.

Individual differences in the effectiveness of self‐distancing for young children's emotion regulation

Self-distancing has been shown to improve children's self-regulation in a variety of tasks. However, it is unknown whether this strategy is more effective for some children than others. This study investigated self-distancing in relation to individual differences in executive function (EF) and effortful control (EC). Typically developing 4- (n=72) and 6-year-olds (n=67) were randomly assigned to think about the self from one of four perspectives: self-immersed, control, third-person, or competent media character. Children participated in a frustrating task for up to 10min and overt expressions of frustration were coded. Conceptually replicating prior research with adults, younger children, and children with lower EF and lower EC (independent of age) benefitted the most from self-distancing. This suggests self-distancing is especially effective during a frustrating task for children with less developed self-control, adding to a growing body of research showing self-distancing is especially effective for vulnerable individuals. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Using third-person speech and pretending to be a media character improve children's self-regulation. Age and theory of mind skills are related to the effectiveness of self-distancing. What does this study add? Self-distancing can help children regulate their emotions during an emotionally charged task. Individual differences in executive function and effortful control are related to the efficacy of self-distancing.

Using facial muscular movements to understand young children's emotion regulation and concurrent neural activation.

Individual differences in young children's frustration responses set the stage for myriad developmental outcomes and represent an area of intense empirical interest. Emotion regulation is hypothesized to comprise the interplay of complex behaviors, such as facial expressions, and activation of concurrent underlying neural systems. At present, however, the literature has mostly examined children's observed emotion regulation behaviors and assumed underlying brain activation through separate investigations, resulting in theoretical gaps in our understanding of how children regulate emotion in vivo. Our goal was to elucidate links between young children's emotion regulation-related neural activation, facial muscular movements, and parent-rated temperamental emotion regulation. Sixty-five children (age 3-7) completed a frustration-inducing computer task while lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) activation and concurrent facial expressions were recorded. Negative facial expressions with eye constriction were inversely associated with both parent-rated temperamental emotion regulation and concurrent LPFC activation. Moreover, we found evidence that positive expressions with eye constriction during frustration may be associated with stronger LPFC activation. Results suggest a correspondence between facial expressions and LPFC activation that may explicate how children regulate emotion in real time.

Differences in Young Children's Peer Preference by Inhibitory Control and Emotion Regulation.

This study investigated differences in young children's peer preference by inhibitory control and emotion regulation. In Study 1, 66 preschoolers (M = 5 years 11 months) were assessed for inhibitory control (IC), emotion regulation (ER), and peer preference. Stroop-like tasks (the black-white task and shine-rain task), the disappointing gift task, and a positive nomination measure were used as measures of IC, ER, and peer preference, respectively. The results of Study 1 showed that participants with high IC or high ER were popular with their peers in comparison to participants with low IC or low ER. Study 2 measured young children's (N = 43, M = 6 years 1 month) ER by comparing social judgment between a condition that induces negative emotion and a condition that does not. The results of Study 2 showed that participants with high IC or high ER (who could select appropriate behaviors, even when negative emotion was induced) had many mutual relations with friends compared to participants with low IC or low ER. These data indicate the role of inhibitory control and emotion regulation in young children's peer preference.

Emotion Regulation in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

There has been little research connecting underlying emotion processes (e.g., emotion regulation) to frequent behavior problems in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study examined the stability of emotion regulation and its relationship with other aspects of child functioning. Participants included 108 children with ASD, ages 4-7, and their primary caregivers. ASD symptoms and cognitive/language abilities were assessed upon study entry. Parents reported on children's emotion regulation, social skills and behavior problems at two time points, 10months apart. Emotion dysregulation was stable and related strongly to social and behavioral functioning but was largely independent of IQ. Further analyses suggested that emotion dysregulation predicts increases in social and behavioral difficulties across time. Implications for intervention are discussed.

A cultural-historical reading of how play is used in families as a tool for supporting children's emotional development in everyday life

Many studies have identified the positive link between imaginary play and emotion regulation in laboratory settings. However, little is known about how play and emotion regulation are related in everyday practice. This article examines how families use play as a tool to support young children's emotion regulation in everyday family life. Two middle-class Australian families with children aged three years were studied over a six-month period (n = 30.75 hours of video observations and interviews). Findings show how manipulative play was used by parents during every day routines to mediate children's emotions. Parents and children interact together to create an emotional zone of proximal development (ZPD) through play, suggesting that the development of emotion regulation is not an individual practice as identified in the literature, but collectively constructed. This study opens a new angle for understanding for a dialectical relation between manipulative play and children's emotional development.

Teacher reflective functioning: a preliminary study of measurement and self-reported teaching behavior

In this pilot study we assessed whether the Parent Development Interview –Revised for Teachers (PDI-R/T) can be used to measure reflective functioning in preschool teachers and whether it was associated with a teacher’s self-reported behavior with a focus child. Twenty teachers were interviewed using the PDI-R/T, which was then coded for reflective functioning using procedures outlined by Slade, Grienenberger, Bernbach, Levy, and Locker. A separate set of coders counted examples of behaviors, reported by the teachers in the PDI-R/T, that are known to foster emotion regulation in young children and behaviors that undermine effective emotion regulation. Teachers’ reflective functioning scores varied from 1 to 8 and were not associated with demographic variables. Teachers rated as highly reflective gave significantly more examples of using behaviors known to foster social emotional skills than teachers rated in the moderate and low reflective functioning categories. These data, although preliminary, indicate that teacher reflective functioning can be measured and may underlie the behaviors that teachers use when interacting which difficult children. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Does young children's emotion regulation predict emotional and external eating?

Children's emotional and external eating are linked to overweight. Both eating patterns can be conceptualized as regulation problems. In one case, the child is not regulating emotions so turns to food for comfort; in the other, children are not regulating eating according to hunger/satiety. Children's emotion regulation is a key component of socioemotional competence. However, research has not yet examined whether children's emotion regulation ability relates to their eating patterns. The objective of the current study is to examine associations between (a) emotion regulation (inhibition, dysregulation, and coping; Children's Emotion Management Scales); and (b) emotional and external eating (Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire‐rev) among 953 rural 2nd graders interviewed at school (49% girls, 17% Native‐American). Preliminary correlational analyses (with 1/2 sample) revealed several trends: External eating was related to inhibition of worry (r = −.08, p = .05) and coping with worry (r = −.07, p = .09), while emotional eating was related to dysregulation of anger (r = .06, p = .10) and coping with worry (r = −.06, p = .08). Findings suggest minimal association between emotion regulation and eating. If total sample analyses reveal stronger associations, interventions with overweight children might include teaching emotion‐regulation skills. Funding was provided by USDA‐CSREES Grant 05545.