Prior research shows that childhood poverty as well as chronic stress can damage children's executive functioning (EF) capacities, including working memory. However, it is also clear that not all children suffer the same degree of adverse consequences from risk exposure. We show that chronic stress early in life (ages 9-13) links childhood…

Appetitive aggression--a rewarding perception of the perpetration of violence--seems to be an adaptation common to adverse conditions. Children raised within armed groups may develop attitudes and values that favour harming others when socialized within a combat force. Combatants who joined an armed force early in their lives should, therefore,…

Children who experience early and extensive child care, especially center-based care, are rated by teachers as having more externalizing behavior problems than are other children. This association is reduced, but not eliminated, when care is of high quality, and it varies by socioeconomic disadvantage and the type of behavior assessed. We examine…

Both organismic and intentional self-regulation processes must be integrated across childhood and adolescence for adaptive developmental regulations to exist and for the developing person to thrive, both during the first two decades of life and through the adult years. To date, such an integrated, life-span approach to self-regulation during…

Executive functions (EFs) involve a number of interconnected systems that, when compromised, can result in difficulties that affect a child's ability to perform tasks across early childhood settings, including the home and community-based settings. In retrospective research studies, researchers have found that a young child's…

Background: Temper modulation problems are both a hallmark of early childhood and a common mental health concern. Thus, characterizing specific behavioral manifestations of temper loss along a dimension from normative misbehaviors to clinically significant problems is an important step toward identifying clinical thresholds. Methods:…

The current longitudinal study used data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) to examine a model of development that emphasizes early caregiving environments as predictors of social emotional competence (including classroom competence). This path analysis…

Prosocial behavior in early childhood is a precursor to later adaptive social functioning. This investigation leveraged mother-reported, physiological, and observational data to examine children's prosocial development from age 2 to age 4 (N = 125). Maternal emotion socialization (ES) strategies and children's parasympathetic regulation have each…

A sample of 209 children was followed longitudinally to examine the impact of growing perspective-taking skills on positive and negative emotionality in middle and late childhood. Perspective-taking skills were assessed through interviews. Teachers rated children's emotional reactivity and capacity to regain a neutral state following emotional…

Research suggests that early self-regulatory difficulties among high-risk newborns can lead to poor interactional difficulties and negative long-term cognitive and social-emotional outcomes if not identified and treated early. This article describes why an individualized, developmentally supportive, relationship-based program, such as the Newborn…

Self-regulatory abilities are robust predictors of important outcomes across the life span, yet they are rarely taught explicitly in school. Using a randomized controlled design, the present study investigated the effects of a 12-week mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum (KC) delivered in a public school setting on executive function,…

This prospective longitudinal study provides evidence of preschool-age precursors of hostile attribution bias in young school-age children, a topic that has received little empirical attention. We examined multiple risk domains, including laboratory and observational assessments of children's social-cognition, general cognitive functioning,…

This revised Early Learning Framework is the culmination of a collaborative process that included early childhood educators, primary teachers, academics, Indigenous organizations, Elders, government, and other professionals. The first Early Learning Framework published in 2008 changed the landscape of early years practice in British Columbia. It…

Every child is different. Some have difficulty expressing their ideas verbally. Some struggle to get along with peers or follow classroom routines. In each case, however, one thing is the same: improved learning and behavior requires strong self-regulation skills. Children develop foundational skills for self-regulation in the first five years of…

In this study, relations between emotional resonance responses to another's distress, emotion regulation, and self-other discrimination were investigated in infants three-, six-, and nine-months-old. We measured the emotional reactions to the pain cry of a peer, along with the ability to regulate emotions and to discriminate between self and other…