Research Findings: The goal of the present study was to examine the moderating role of child effortful control (EC) in the relation between shyness and social-emotional adjustment difficulties among young Chinese children. Participants included 195 children (117 boys, 78 girls, Mage = 4.28 years, SD = 0.31) enrolled in 6 classes attending…

Research Findings: Self-regulation is an important determinant of children's developmental outcomes, but little research has explored its different facets simultaneously. This study aims to explore a sample of Chinese children's behavioral, cognitive and emotional self-regulation characteristics by examining their gender and age differences,…

Studies with extensive observations of real-life emotions at school are rare but might be especially useful for predicting school-related outcomes. This study evaluated observations of negative emotion expressivity in lunch and recreation settings across kindergarten, first grade, and second grade (N = 301), kindergarten teachers' reports of…

Research Findings: This study investigated the bidirectional relations among paired associate learning (PAL), language-specific skills and Chinese word reading in kindergarten children from second year (K2) to third year (K3). We tested 204 children on four mapping conditions of PAL (i.e., visual-verbal, verbal-verbal, visual-visual, and…

Research Findings: This study used data from a large-scale kindergarten entry assessment (KEA) to understand how well two state screening measures, administered at school entry, predicted the first-grade reading outcomes of a large sample of first-time kindergarteners (N=5,480) at high risk for future reading failure. We examined young children's…

Make-believe play has been theorized to promote self-regulation skills and other positive child outcomes. In this study, we examine the make-believe play approach featured in the "Tools of the Mind" (Tools) early childhood curriculum, which identifies students' self-regulation cultivation among its core programmatic aims. Using data from…

Research Findings: Children's readiness to handle the expectations of elementary school depends heavily on their self-regulation skills. Self-regulation includes both cognitive and behavioral elements; however, past studies have typically looked at cognitive and behavioral self-regulation in isolation or as a composite score rather than examining…

Research Findings: The present study examined patterns of longitudinal associations between inhibitory control (IC) and early academic skills during the preschool and kindergarten years. Using data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey Cohort 2009 (FACES 2009) (N = 939), a national data set of predominantly low-income children…

The present study investigated gender differences in social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and socioemotional skills and examined the relationships among this knowledge and these skills by gender. Participants were 134 Chinese children (68 boys, M age = 3.80; 66 girls, M age = 3.89) and their parents…

Research Findings: In order to examine the explanatory power of behavioral self-regulation in the domain of emotion knowledge, especially in a non-U.S. culture, 365 German 4- and 5-year-olds were individually tested on these constructs. Path analyses revealed that children's behavioral self-regulation explained their emotion knowledge in the…

Research Findings: Early reading and mathematics skills predict later academic success, and child self-regulation and secure parent-child relationships are both predictors of early academic skills. Self-regulatory and family relationship factors have rarely been studied together as predictors of early academic success in populations of young…

Research Findings: Students experienced a mindfulness program designed to enhance their self-regulation in prekindergarten and kindergarten. At the end of the 1st year of the program, these students showed improvements in teacher-reported executive function skills, specifically related to working memory and planning and organizing, whereas…

Research Findings: This study investigated the long-term interrelations among children's language competencies, their home literacy environment (HLE), and 3 aspects of socioemotional development from ages 3 to 8, controlling for characteristics of the child and family. For this sample of 547 typically developing German children, parents and…

Research Findings: This study examined the relation between Chilean parents' narrative participatory styles (i.e., the way in which parents scaffold children's participation in conversations) and children's self-regulation skills. A total of 210 low-income Chilean parent-child dyads participated in the study. Dyads were videotaped talking about a…

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to identify the developmental trajectories of impulsive behavior among 378 Finnish children who were followed from kindergarten to 4th grade. In addition to ratings of children's impulsivity, the analyses included measures of motivation, cognitive skills, socioemotional adjustment, and…