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Koepp AE, Gershoff ET. Leveraging an intensive time series of young children's movement to capture impulsive and inattentive behaviors in a preschool setting. Child Dev 2024. [PMID: 38655639 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/26/2024]
Abstract
Studying within-person variability in children's behavior is frequently hindered by challenges collecting repeated observations. This study used wearable accelerometers to collect an intensive time series (2.7 million observations) of young children's movement at school (N = 62, Mage = 4.5 years, 54% male, 74% Non-Hispanic White) in 2021. Machine learning analyses indicated that children's typical forward acceleration was strongly correlated with lower teacher-reported inhibitory control and attention (r = -.69). Using forward movement intensity as a proxy for impulsivity, we partitioned the intensive time series and found that (1) children modulated their behavior across periods of the school day, (2) children's impulsivity increased across the school week, and (3) children with greater impulsivity showed greater variability in behavior across days.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew E Koepp
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Elizabeth T Gershoff
- Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
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DeJoseph ML, Ellwood-Lowe ME, Miller-Cotto D, Silverman D, Shannon KA, Reyes G, Rakesh D, Frankenhuis WE. The promise and pitfalls of a strength-based approach to child poverty and neurocognitive development: Implications for policy. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2024; 66:101375. [PMID: 38608359 PMCID: PMC11019102 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101375] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2023] [Revised: 03/27/2024] [Accepted: 04/04/2024] [Indexed: 04/14/2024] Open
Abstract
There has been significant progress in understanding the effects of childhood poverty on neurocognitive development. This progress has captured the attention of policymakers and promoted progressive policy reform. However, the prevailing emphasis on the harms associated with childhood poverty may have inadvertently perpetuated a deficit-based narrative, focused on the presumed shortcomings of children and families in poverty. This focus can have unintended consequences for policy (e.g., overlooking strengths) as well as public discourse (e.g., focusing on individual rather than systemic factors). Here, we join scientists across disciplines in arguing for a more well-rounded, "strength-based" approach, which incorporates the positive and/or adaptive developmental responses to experiences of social disadvantage. Specifically, we first show the value of this approach in understanding normative brain development across diverse human environments. We then highlight its application to educational and social policy, explore pitfalls and ethical considerations, and offer practical solutions to conducting strength-based research responsibly. Our paper re-ignites old and recent calls for a strength-based paradigm shift, with a focus on its application to developmental cognitive neuroscience. We also offer a unique perspective from a new generation of early-career researchers engaged in this work, several of whom themselves have grown up in conditions of poverty. Ultimately, we argue that a balanced strength-based scientific approach will be essential to building more effective policies.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - David Silverman
- Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, United States
| | | | - Gabriel Reyes
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, United States
| | - Divyangana Rakesh
- Neuroimaging Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, UK
| | - Willem E Frankenhuis
- Evolutionary and Population Biology, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law, Germany
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Sierksma J. Children perpetuate competence-based inequality when they help peers. NPJ Sci Learn 2023; 8:41. [PMID: 37730707 PMCID: PMC10511518 DOI: 10.1038/s41539-023-00192-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2023] [Accepted: 09/07/2023] [Indexed: 09/22/2023]
Abstract
Exchanges of help between children are common and often have positive consequences. But not all help is equally beneficial, for example because some help does not provide an opportunity to practice and develop skills. Here I examine whether young children might perpetuate competence-based inequality by providing incompetent peers with less opportunity to practice and improve their skills compared to competent peers. Study 1 (N = 253, 6-9 years) shows that young children understand not all help is equally beneficial: Children think that peers who receive empowerment (hints) vs. non-empowerment (correct answers) help can learn more. Study 2 (N = 80) and 3 (N = 41) then assessed children's (7-9 years) actual helping behavior in a lab-based experiment. Through a cover story, participants were introduced to two unknown, same-age children whom they later overheard were either good or not good at solving puzzles (Study 2) or math (Study 3). Subsequently, participants got to help both of them with a puzzle-quiz (Study 2) or a math-quiz (Study 3) by providing either empowerment or non-empowerment when they asked for help. Across both studies, children were more likely to provide empowerment help to competent peers, and non-empowerment help to incompetent peers. This work suggests that when young children perceive differences in competence (e.g., based on stereotypes), they contribute to maintaining the status quo by providing the most vulnerable students, that would profit the most from improving their skills, less opportunity to do so.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jellie Sierksma
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
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Wang J(J, Bonawitz E. Children’s Sensitivity to Difficulty and Reward Probability When Deciding to Take on a Task. Journal of Cognition and Development 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2152032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jinjing (Jenny) Wang
- Department of Psychology, Rutgers University – New Brunswick, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA
- Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University – New Brunswick, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA
| | - Elizabeth Bonawitz
- Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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Park AT, Richardson H, Tooley UA, McDermott CL, Boroshok AL, Ke A, Leonard JA, Tisdall MD, Deater-Deckard K, Edgar JC, Mackey AP. Early stressful experiences are associated with reduced neural responses to naturalistic emotional and social content in children. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2022; 57:101152. [PMID: 36137356 PMCID: PMC9493069 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2022] [Revised: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 09/15/2022] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
How do children's experiences relate to their naturalistic emotional and social processing? Because children can struggle with tasks in the scanner, we collected fMRI data while 4-to-11-year-olds watched a short film with positive and negative emotional events, and rich parent-child interactions (n = 70). We captured broad, normative stressful experiences by examining socioeconomic status (SES) and stressful life events, as well as children's more proximal experiences with their parents. For a sub-sample (n = 30), parenting behaviors were measured during a parent-child interaction, consisting of a picture book, a challenging puzzle, and free play with novel toys. We characterized positive parenting behaviors (e.g., warmth, praise) and negative parenting behaviors (e.g., harsh tone, physical control). We found that higher SES was related to greater activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex during parent-child interaction movie events. Negative parenting behaviors were associated with less activation of the ventral tegmental area and cerebellum during positive emotional events. In a region-of-interest analysis, we found that stressful life events and negative parenting behaviors were associated with less activation of the amygdala during positive emotional events. These exploratory results demonstrate the promise of using movie fMRI to study how early experiences may shape emotional, social, and motivational processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne T Park
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Hilary Richardson
- Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Ursula A Tooley
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, United States; Neuroscience Graduate Group, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Cassidy L McDermott
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Austin L Boroshok
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Adrian Ke
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Julia A Leonard
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, United States; Department of Psychology, Yale University, United States
| | - M Dylan Tisdall
- Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Kirby Deater-Deckard
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States
| | | | - Allyson P Mackey
- Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, United States.
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Buhr L, Moschko T, Zarate AERD, Schwarz U, Kühnhausen J, Gawrilow C. The Association of Self-Reported ADHD Symptoms and Sleep in Daily Life of a General Population Sample of School Children: An Inter- and Intraindividual Perspective. Brain Sci 2022; 12:440. [PMID: 35447972 PMCID: PMC9026750 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12040440] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2022] [Revised: 03/17/2022] [Accepted: 03/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Sleep and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have repeatedly been found to be associated with each other. However, the ecological validity of daily life studies to examine the effect of sleep on ADHD symptoms is rarely made use of. In an ambulatory assessment study with measurement burst design, consisting of three bursts (each 6 months apart) of 18 days each, 70 German schoolchildren aged 10–12 years reported on their sleep quality each morning and on their subjective ADHD symptom levels as well as their sleepiness three times a day. It was hypothesized that nightly sleep quality is negatively associated with ADHD symptoms on the inter- as well as the intraindividual level. Thus, we expected children who sleep better to report higher attention and self-regulation. Additionally, sleepiness during the day was hypothesized to be positively associated with ADHD symptoms on both levels, meaning that when children are sleepier, they experience more ADHD symptoms. No association of sleep quality and ADHD symptoms between or within participants was found in multilevel analyses; also, no connection was found between ADHD symptoms and daytime sleepiness on the interindividual level. Unexpectedly, a negative association was found on the intraindividual level for ADHD symptoms and daytime sleepiness, indicating that in moments when children are sleepier during the day, they experience less ADHD symptoms. Explorative analyses showed differential links of nightly sleep quality and daytime sleepiness, with the core symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, respectively. Therefore, future analyses should take the factor structure of ADHD symptoms into account.
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