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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.

This study examined bidirectional relations between television exposure and effortful control accounting for the effects of family contextual risk factors. Data were from a sample (N = 306) of parents and their preschool-age children (T1 M = 36 mos. in 2008-2010) assessed four times, once every 9 mos. At T1, adolescent parent status predicted lower child delay ability (DA), and maternal depression predicted higher TV time. Above these effects, higher T1 and T2 child executive control (EC) prospectively predicted lower T2 and T3 TV time, while higher T1 TV time predicted lower T2 EC. Higher EC at T4 predicted fewer total problems, greater social competence, and greater academic readiness at T4, and higher TV time at T4 predicted lower academic readiness. DA was unrelated to TV time or adjustment. Findings suggest executive control and TV time predict changes in each other in early childhood, and in turn, executive control predicts better child adjustment while TV time might be more relevant for academic readiness. Moreover, family risk factors appear to play a role in both TV viewing time and effortful control.

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.

Interactions between reactive and regulatory dimensions of temperament may be particularly relevant to children's adjustment but are examined infrequently. This study investigated these interactions by examining effortful control as a moderator of the relations of fear and frustration reactivity to children's social competence, internalizing, and externalizing problems. Participants included 306 three-year-old children and their mothers. Children's effortful control was measured using observational measures, and reactivity was assessed with both observational and mother-reported measures. Mothers reported on children's adjustment. Significant interactions indicated that children with higher mother-reported fear or higher observed frustration and lower executive control showed higher externalizing problems whereas children with higher observed fear and higher delay ability demonstrated lower externalizing problems. These results highlight effortful control as a moderator of the relation between reactivity and adjustment, and may inform the development of interventions geared toward the management of specific negative affects. (Contains 3 figures and 4 tables.)

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]

This study investigated the possible unique effects of pre‐and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms in relation to parenting and children's effortful control in predicting children's adjustment. Contextual risk factors (income, negative life events) were modelled. Mothers and children (N = 306) were assessed four times, including T1 maternal reports of depressive symptoms, T2 observed parenting, T3 behavioural measures of effortful control, and T4 teacher ratings of children's outcomes. Pre‐ and postnatal contextual risk predicted maternal depression and child adjustment directly. Post‐ but not prenatal depressive symptoms predicted parenting behaviours. Pre‐ but not postnatal depressive symptoms predicted children's adjustment. Results suggest that pre‐ and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms are uniquely associated with parenting and child outcomes.This study asks if pre‐ and postnatal depressive symptoms effect children's adjustment through mothers' parenting and children's subsequent self‐regulation.Multiple methods were utilized and showed that postnatal depressive symptoms predict parenting while prenatal depressive symptoms predict adjustment.Pre‐ and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms are uniquely associated with parenting and child outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive and bidirectional effects of executive control and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis regulation on children's adjustment were examined, along with the effects of low income and cumulative risk on executive control and the HPA axis. The study utilized longitudinal data from a community sample of preschool age children (N = 306, 36–39 months at Time 1) whose families were recruited to overrepresent low-income contexts. We tested the effects of low income and cumulative risk on levels and growth of executive control and HPA axis regulation (diurnal cortisol level), the bidirectional effects of executive control and the HPA axis on each other, and their additive effects on children's adjustment problems, social competence and academic readiness. Low income predicted lower Time 4 executive control, and cumulative risk predicted lower Time 4 diurnal cortisol level. There was little evidence of bidirectional effects of executive control and diurnal cortisol. However, both executive control and diurnal cortisol predicted Time 4 adjustment, suggesting additive effects. There were indirect effects of income on all three adjustment outcomes through executive control, and of cumulative risk on adjustment problems and social competence through diurnal cortisol. The results provide evidence that executive control and diurnal cortisol additively predict children's adjustment and partially account for the effects of income and cumulative risk on adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]