Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology最新文献

Background

Interpersonal stress has been consistently linked with poorer adjustment, and healthy sleep may play a promotive or protective role in this relation. However, little is known regarding such associations among children. The current study examined longitudinal associations between daily interpersonal stress, sleep, and internalizing/externalizing symptoms during middle childhood.

Methods

At age 8 years, participants wore actigraphy watches for 7 days to capture sleep, and primary caregivers reported on children's daily interpersonal stress, internalizing/externalizing symptoms, and sleep problems. At age 9 years, children self-reported symptoms.

Results

Greater daily interpersonal stress at age 8 years predicted greater internalizing/externalizing symptoms at age 9 years. Higher sleep efficiency predicted fewer externalizing symptoms. Sleep duration moderated links between interpersonal stress and internalizing/externalizing symptoms, but associations were positive and significant for children with average and high duration only.

Conclusion

Findings advance our understanding of links between interpersonal stress, sleep, and child adjustment and can inform targeted family and school interventions.

The evidence on whether socioeconomic status moderates the effectiveness of parent-training programs for disruptive child behaviors is inconclusive. These varied results may stem from differences in the programs or the studies themselves. We applied an equivalence test paradigm to test the hypothesis of equal benefit from the Incredible Years Parent-Training (IYPT) across family risk on disruptive child behaviors. During the Danish roll-out of the IYPT, 1203 families were recruited across 20 different municipalities. The isolated and cumulative effect of five markers of low socioeconomic status, specifically single parent household, parental unemployment, low family income, low parental educational level, and teen parenthood, were analyzed as predictors of pre-to-post treatment response. Results showed equal benefit among families experiencing from zero to four accumulated socioeconomic risks (99 % of our sample). Our findings suggest that the IYPT brings equal benefit across socioeconomic backgrounds and risk levels in Danish community settings.

When faced with different epistemic authorities, identifying information quality is important for children's knowledge acquisition. The current study explored how explanation quality influences children's trust in two types of epistemic authorities: a person and a book. Chinese children ages 5, 7, and 9 (n = 133; 73 girls) were presented with scientific explanations that varied in source (teacher/book) and explanation quality (circular/noncircular) and indicated their preferences or endorsements. The results indicated that 5-year-olds initially preferred the teacher over the book, whereas 7- and 9-year-olds did not show a preference between the two sources. After each source provided circular or noncircular explanations, 7- and 9-year-olds preferred to trust the source that offered noncircular explanations, but 5-year-olds did not differentiate between the sources based on explanation quality. These findings suggest that 5-year-old children's trust in epistemic authorities focuses on source category, but children age 7 and above rely on explanation quality.

Across cultures, child self-regulation develops within the parent-child relationship and requires flexible management of one's biology and behaviors. Despite documented relations between self-regulation and adaptive psychological adjustment, research has primarily focused on single indicator assessments of self-regulation within mostly White samples. The present study assessed indicators of self-regulation (i.e., task persistence, positive affect, resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia) in 100 Black and Latinx children (M_age = 6.83 years, SD = 1.50 years) and mother emotion parenting behaviors (M_age = 34.48 years, SD = 6.39 years). Using latent profile analysis, four child self-regulatory profiles were identified. Profile differences by mother emotion parenting behaviors were examined. Controlling for income, ANCOVAs indicated that mothers of children in relatively high self-regulatory profiles showed more positive emotion parenting behaviors when compared to mothers of children in comparatively lower regulatory profiles. Results highlight potential targets for fostering child self-regulation within racial and ethnic minority parent-child relationships.

We examined the role of racial socialization goals in explaining differences in Black American and White American parents' responses to their children's emotions. Black (n = 67) and White (n = 90) parents of young adolescents (9–14 years old) completed measures assessing their racial and emotion socialization goals and responses to their adolescent's negative emotions. Black parents rated preparation for bias and protective emotion socialization goals more frequently and endorsed greater likelihood of emotion suppressive responses—minimizing (e.g., tell my child not to make a big deal of it), punitive (e.g., send my child to their room to cool off), and distress (e.g., get upset with my child)—than White parents. Preparation for bias goals were associated with punitive and distress responses and accounted for racial differences in punitive responses. We argue for integrating emotion and racial socialization to support the advancement of culturally sensitive research and clinical practice for Black families.

Culturally-influenced adaptation and maladaptation may influence college students' mental health across various forms of cultural identity (e.g., racial/ethnic identity, socioeconomic status [SES]). In this cross-sectional study, 925 college students (M_age = 19.9, 67% self-identified female, 64% White, 25% Hispanic/Latino, 69% middle class or below) responded to a one-time questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that cultural risk (insecurity, stress, discrimination) and adaptation (centrality, routine behaviors, motivation, resilience) were differentially associated with internalizing symptoms. Multigroup analyses by cultural identity subgroups indicated that cultural risk was associated with greater internalizing symptoms across all SES groups, but most salient for high SES students, and more strongly associated with anxiety among White students compared to racial/ethnically minoritized students. Cultural adaptation more saliently predicted internalizing symptoms for students with lower-middle/working-class SES identity. College students experience multi-faceted risk and adaptation related to their cultural identities, experiences of which are shaped by social position and differentially contribute to mental health.

Most educators engaged in dialogic reading (DR) are adults, whilst less attention is paid to the teaching effect of siblings on the language development of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study, which included 1007 Chinese kindergarteners with ASD, aimed to examine the possible effects of siblings' DR involvement on the language development of ASD children in terms of receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, character reading, listening comprehension and reading interest. After a 12-week intervention period, results revealed that, except listening comprehension, ASD children who read with their older siblings demonstrated greater improvements than when they read with their parents in terms of expressive vocabulary, character reading skills and reading interest. These findings demonstrated the positive effects of DR on the language development of ASD children and highlight the importance of involving siblings in home literacy activities to facilitate the language development of ASD children. The effects of gender dyads and age differences between educators and ASD children have also been discussed.

Suicide has been an important topic in recent years, but no previous studies have investigated suicide from the perspective of parent–child attachment and positive psychological qualities. Thus, we aimed to examine the relationship between parent–child attachment and children's suicidal ideation, as well as the mechanism involved. In total, 681 fourth-grade students from three elementary schools in Suzhou, China, were surveyed for two years. The results showed the following. (1) Mother–child attachment directly predicted suicidal ideation in children whereas father–child attachment did not. (2) Mother–child attachment indirectly predicted suicidal ideation in children via beliefs about adversity and hope, and father–child attachment indirectly predicted suicidal ideation in children via beliefs about adversity. (3) Parent–child attachment indirectly predicted suicidal ideation in children through beliefs about adversity (M₁) and hope (M₂) as a mediator set. Revealing the mechanisms associated with the generation and formation of suicidal ideation in children can help prevent possible future suicidal behaviors in children.

We evaluated the EmBARK (Empowering Behaviors to Address Race with Kids) program, which we developed to help White parents in the US address race and racial biases with their White 5- to 7-year-old children. Parents (N = 73) completed EmBARK or control condition activities matched for time commitment and engagement with their child. We achieved remarkable compliance with EmBARK, with 95% of parents completing every program component. Parents also liked EmBARK, found EmBARK useful, and successfully implemented EmBARK activities with their children. Parents praised EmBARK's structured guidance for having conversations about race with their children. Parents in the EmBARK condition (vs. control) expressed more concern about, and self-efficacy to address, children's racial biases. This study lays groundwork for assessing the long-term impact of EmBARK on reducing children's racial biases. The findings provide hope that when given resources and guidance, White parents could become active agents in addressing children's racial biases.

This study examined the role of cognitive flexibility (CF) in emergent literacy among Hebrew-speaking kindergartners. 1050 children were measured in emergent literacy and CF. Path analysis highlighted CF's significant role across all literacy sub-skills. Latent Profile Analysis identified four CF profiles, and post-hoc tests examined how these profiles relate to emergent literacy. Similarly, profiles based on literacy performance were analyzed for their association with CF. (1) Kindergartners with weak CF exhibited low emergent literacy. Those with stronger CF demonstrated better emergent literacy; (2) Medium level of CF, indicating potential strengths or difficulties in emergent literacy; (3) Weak PA linked to moderate-low CF, regardless of other literacy skills. These findings emphasize the importance of assessing CF in kindergarten against potential literacy difficulties before formal first-grade learning.