Child Distress Expression and Regulation Behaviors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Prenatal exposure to social adversity and infant cortisol in the first year of life

Exposure to social adversity has been associated with cortisol dysregulation during pregnancy and in later childhood; less is known about how prenatal exposure to social stressors affects postnatal cortisol of infants. In a secondary analysis of data from a longitudinal study, we tested whether a pregnant woman's reports of social adversity during the third trimester were associated with their infant's resting cortisol at 1, 6, and 12 months postnatal. Our hypothesis was that prenatal exposure to social adversity would be associated with elevation of infants' cortisol. Measures included prenatal survey reports of social stressors and economic hardship, and resting cortisol levels determined from infant saliva samples acquired at each postnatal timepoint. Data were analyzed using linear mixed effects models. The final sample included 189 women and their infants (46.56% assigned female sex at birth). Prenatal economic hardship was significantly associated with infant cortisol at 6 months postnatal; reports of social stressors were not significantly associated with cortisol at any time point. Factors associated with hardship, such as psychological distress or nutritional deficiencies, may alter fetal HPA axis development, resulting in elevated infant cortisol levels. Developmental changes unique to 6 months of age may explain effects at this timepoint. More work is needed to better comprehend the complex pre- and post-natal physiologic and behavioral factors that affect infant HPA axis development and function, and the modifying role of environmental exposures.

Understanding the concurrent and predictive relations between child-led emotion regulation behaviors and pain during vaccination in toddlerhood

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to further our understanding of early childhood pain-related distress regulation. Concurrent and predictive relations between child-led emotion regulation (ER) behaviors and pain-related distress during vaccination were examined at 2 different ages using autoregressive cross-lagged path analyses. Toddlers were video-recorded at the 12- and 18-month routine vaccination appointments (12-month-old [N = 163]; 18-month-old [N = 149]). At 1, 2, and 3 minutes postneedle, videos were coded for 3 clusters of child-led ER behaviors (disengagement of attention, parent-focused behaviors, and physical self-soothing) and pain-related distress. The concurrent and predictive relations between child-led ER behaviors and pain-related distress behaviors were assessed using 6 models (3 emotion regulation behaviors by 2 ages). At 18 months, disengagement of attention was significantly negatively related to pain-related distress at 1 minute postneedle, and pain-related distress at 1 minute postneedle was significantly related to less disengagement of attention at 2 minutes postneedle. Parent-focused behaviors had significant positive relations with pain-related distress at both ages, with stronger magnitudes at 18 months. Physical self-soothing was significantly related to less pain-related distress at both ages. Taken together, these findings suggest that disengagement of attention and physical self-soothing may serve more of a regulatory function during toddlerhood, whereas parent-focused behaviors may serve more of a function of gaining parent support for regulation. This study is the first to assess these relations during routine vaccination in toddlerhood and suggests that toddlers in the second year of life are beginning to play a bigger role in their own regulation from painful procedures than earlier in infancy.

Association of Emotion Regulation and Dispositional Mindfulness in an Adolescent Sample: The Mediational Role of Time Perspective

This study relates emotional regulation strategies with dispositional mindfulness and the mediating role of time perspective. It is based on the fact that one of the mechanisms of mindfulness consists in providing protective emotional regulation strategies. At the same time, a direct relationship between dispositional mindfulness and time perspective has been observed. To do this, a representative sample of 320 Chilean adolescents from the city of Talcahuano, whose age ranged between 14 and 17 years old, and who were attending high school, was evaluated. The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire were applied. Regression analysis results verified the close relationship between emotional regulation and dispositional mindfulness (R² = 0.54), as well as with the factors of time perspective (R² = 0.41), explaining, between both of them, 60% of the variance of difficulties in emotional regulation. The possible mediational role of time perspective between dispositional mindfulness and emotional regulation is established.