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Conversational turn-taking is a complex communicative skill that requires both linguistic and executive functioning (EF) skills, including processing input while simultaneously forming and inhibiting responses until one's turn. Adult-child turn-taking predicts children's linguistic, cognitive, and socioemotional development. However, little is understood about how disruptions to temporal contingency in turn-taking, such as interruptions and overlapping speech, relate to cognitive outcomes, and how these relationships may vary across developmental contexts. In a longitudinal sample of 275 socioeconomically diverse mother-child dyads (children 50% male, 65% White), we conducted pre-registered examinations of whether the frequency of dyads' conversational disruption during free play when children were 3 years old related to children's executive functioning (EF; 9 months later), self-regulation skills (18 months later), and externalizing psychopathology in early adolescence (age 10-12 years). Contrary to hypotheses, more conversational disruptions significantly predicted higher inhibition skills, controlling for sex, age, income-to-needs (ITN), and language ability. Results were driven by maternal disruptions of the child's speech, and could not be explained by measures of overall talkativeness or interactiveness. Exploratory analyses revealed that ITN moderated these relationships, such that the positive effect of disruptions on inhibition was strongest for children from lower ITN backgrounds. We discuss how adult-driven "cooperative overlap" may serve as a form of engaged participation that supports cognition and behavior in certain cultural contexts., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This study tested child characteristics (temperamental executive control and negative reactivity) and maternal characteristics (parenting behaviors and maternal depressive symptoms) as predictors of a mother's emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs). Further, parenting behaviors and ERSBs were examined as predictors of children's emotion knowledge, social competence, and adjustment problems. ERSBs and children's emotion knowledge were tested as mediators of the effects of child and parent characteristics on adjustment. A community sample (N = 306) of mothers and children (36-40 months at T1) were assessed 4 times, once every 9 months, and assessments included maternal reports of depressive symptoms, observed temperament, observational ratings of general parenting at T1, maternal report of ERSBs at T1 & T2, behavioral measures of emotion knowledge at T3, and teacher ratings of children's adjustment at T4. There were no predictors of ERSBs above prior levels. Higher executive control and lower maternal depressive symptoms predicted greater child emotion knowledge, highlighting the roles of maternal and child contributors to emotion knowledge. Greater emotion knowledge and positive affective quality in parenting predicted children's adjustment, with emotion knowledge mediating the effects of executive control on children's adjustment. In addition, lower levels of maternal supportive ERSBs predicted greater adjustment problems. This study highlights the roles of key variables in Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad's (1998) heuristic model of emotion socialization and the importance of emotion socialization and emotion knowledge in children's adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Bidirectional associations between child temperament (fear, frustration, positive affect, effortful control) and parenting behaviors (warmth, negativity, limit setting, scaffolding, responsiveness) were examined as predictors of preschool-age children's adjustment problems and social competence. Participants were a community sample of children (N = 306; 50% female, 64% European American) and their mothers. Observational measures of child temperament and parenting were obtained using laboratory tasks at two time points (children's ages 36 and 54 months). Teacher-reported adjustment measures were collected at the first and third time points (children's ages 36 and 63 months). Cross-lagged analyses were performed to examine whether child temperament and parenting predict changes in one another, whether they each contribute independently to children's adjustment, and whether these transactional relations account for adjustment outcomes. Maternal negativity at 36 months predicted increases in child frustration at 54 months. Maternal negativity and child effortful control predicted decreases in each other from 36 to 54 months. Maternal warmth predicted increases in child effortful control over time. Child frustration, child effortful control, maternal warmth, and maternal negativity at 54 months each independently predicted child adjustment problems at 63 months, controlling for problems at 36 months. Child executive control at 54 months predicted increases in child social competence at 63 months. The findings suggest that temperament and parenting have independent and additive effects on preschool-age child adjustment, with some support for a bidirectional relation.

Background: Children from low-income backgrounds are more likely to have cognitive impairments, academic problems, and obesity. Biological mechanisms for the relationship between adiposity and neurocognitive functioning have been suggested, but the direction of effects is unclear., Methods: The relations among income, BMI, and cognitive-behavioral functioning were modeled longitudinally. Children (n = 306) were assessed at 36-39 months (Time 1; T1) and 63-67 months (Time 4; T4) through anthropometry, measures of executive control (EC), delay ability (DA), and questionnaires on academic readiness, social competence, and behavioral adjustment., Results: Income was positively related to T1 EC and DA and negatively related to T1 BMI. T1 BMI was negatively related to T4 EC, after controlling for T1 EC, but was unrelated to changes in DA. Neither T1 EC nor DA was related to changes in BMI. T4 EC predicted greater academic readiness and social competence and lower adjustment problems at T4. T4 BMI was related to higher T4 adjustment problems. There was an indirect effect of income on T4 EC through T1 BMI. There were indirect effects of T1 BMI on academic readiness, social competence, and adjustment through T4 EC. Children who were obese at T1 had a 19% lower rate of growth of EC, compared to nonobese children., Conclusions: BMI mediates the effect of income on children's EC and has negative implications for academic readiness, social competence, and behavioral adjustment. The dual impact of obesity and cognitive-behavioral problems underscores the importance of early identification of and intervention for overweight children which could have neurocognitive and social-emotional benefits. What's New: BMI mediates the effect of income on preschoolers' executive control (EC) and has negative implications for academic readiness and behavioral adjustment. EC and delay ability did not predict changes in BMI. Early identification of, and intervention for, overweight children may have neurocognitive and social-emotional benefits.

The study examined growth in effortful control (executive control, delay ability) in relation to income, cumulative risk (aggregate of demographic and psychosocial risk factors), and adjustment in 306 preschool-age children (50 % girls, 50 % boys) from families representing a range of income (29 % at- or near-poverty; 28 % lower-income; 25 % middle-income; 18 % upper-income), with 4 assessments starting at 36-40 month. Income was directly related to levels of executive control and delay ability. Cumulative risk accounted for the effects of income on delay ability but not executive control. Higher initial executive control and slope of executive control and delay ability predicted academic readiness, whereas levels, but not growth, of executive control and delay ability predicted social competence and adjustment problems. Low income is a marker for lower effortful control, which demonstrates additive or mediating effects in the relation of income to children's preschool adjustment.

This study examined whether effortful control (executive control [EC], delay ability [DA]) accounted for the effects of early‐childhood contextual factors (income, cumulative risk, parenting) on middle‐childhood adjustment (social competence, internalizing and externalizing problems), or whether contextual factors account for observed associations between effortful control and adjustment. A sample of children and parents (N = 306) were assessed when children were 3‐, 5‐, and 8‐years. Age‐3 income and cumulative risk predicted changes in age‐8 EC. Also, age‐3 parenting predicted changes in effortful control. Warmth and limit setting predicted increases in EC, whereas negativity predicted decreases in DA from the age of 3 to 5, and scaffolding predicted increases in EC and DA from the age of 5 to 8. In turn, age‐8 EC was associated with higher social competence. However, neither age‐8 EC nor DA was associated with internalizing or externalizing above the effects of age‐8 stress (negative life events). The findings indicate that early‐childhood income, adversity, and parenting are relevant in predicting effortful control development into middle‐childhood, and in turn, middle‐childhood social competence. However, concurrent stress appears more relevant to adjustment problems, implying some of the effects of effortful control might be accounted for by the context of risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]