Emotion Regulation, Language Ability, and the Stability of Preschool Children's Peer Play Behavior

Abstract

Research Findings: This study examined the stability of preschoolers' peer play behavior across the school year and the relations between emotion regulation, receptive vocabulary, and the trajectory of social competence deficits. Participants were 331 preschool children attending Head Start; they were primarily African American and from a low-SES background. Peer play behavior was moderately stable from fall to spring. Analyses revealed that emotional lability in the fall was associated with consistently maladaptive and declining social competence. Furthermore, children who exhibited stable maladaptive behavior had lower receptive language skills and emotion regulation in the fall than children who exhibited consistently adaptive behavior. Preschool children with comorbid externalizing and internalizing behaviors during peer play were at the greatest risk for consistent peer play difficulties or declining social competence over the course of the year compared to their peers. Practice: The present study informs practices for identifying at-risk preschoolers shortly after entry into an early education experience. Moreover, the findings suggest that without effective interventions, those at-risk children are likely to exhibit consistently poor social competence over time. Implications for the use of early intervention and prevention targeting specific behavioral and peer problems are discussed.

The relationships among language ability, emotion regulation and social competence in second-grade students

“…Strong relationships were found between emotion regulation and all measures of social skills, and language ability was strongly related to school problems and adaptive skills. This supports previous research that linked emotion regulation to social competence (Cohen & Mendez, 2009;Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992;Spinrad et al, 2006) and emotional problems to deficits in social skills (Cohen & Mendez, 2009;Cole & Hall, 2008). The result regarding language ability's relationship with social skills aligns with prior research in some respects but differs in other ways.…”

Measuring Callous Unemotional Behaviors in Early Childhood: Factor Structure and the Prediction of Stable Aggression in Middle Childhood

“…Although we are unaware of any studies that have established this in samples consisting entirely of young children, there are good reasons to do so. Disruptive behaviors are multiply determined in early childhood and, for some subset of children, likely represent transient difficulties associated with emerging self-regulatory and language abilities (Arnold, Kupersmidt, Voegler-Lee, & Marshall, 2012; Cohen & Mendez, 2009; Mathiesen & Sanson, 1999; Rose, Rose, & Feldman, 1989; Shaw, Lacourse, & Nagin, 2005). An open question is whether the co-occurrence of ODD (a developmentally appropriate indicator of conduct problems for young children) and CU behaviors in early childhood might identify that subset of children whose disruptive behaviors are less transient and more likely to persist into middle childhood.…”

Playing with others: Head Start children's peer play and relations with kindergarten school competence

“…For instance, Cohen and Mendez (2009) examined Head Start children's peer play reported by teachers in the fall and spring, and classified play quality at each time point as “disordered” if it was disruptive or disconnected. Some children's quality stayed the same and other children's quality differed from fall to spring (stable disordered [13% of sample], disordered improving [14%], stable nondisordered [64%], and nondisordered declining [9%]).…”