Maternal and child contributions to cortisol response to emotional arousal in young children from low-income, rural communities.

Abstract

Relations of maternal and child characteristics to child cortisol reactivity to and recovery from emotional arousal were examined prospectively at approximately 7 months of age (infancy) and then again at approximately 15 months of age (toddlerhood). The sample was diverse and population based (N = 1,292 mother-infant dyads) and included families from predominantly low-income, rural communities. Maternal behavior, family income-to-need ratio and social advantage, and child temperament, attention, and mental development were assessed, and children's saliva was sampled before and after standardized procedures designed to elicit emotional arousal. Maternal engagement in infancy was associated with greater cortisol reactivity at the infancy assessment and with reduced overall cortisol level at the toddler assessment. Also at the toddler assessment, child attention, mental development, and temperamental distress to novelty were associated with increased cortisol reactivity and regulation, whereas temperamental distress to limitations and African American ethnicity were associated with reduced cortisol reactivity. Findings are consistent with prior work linking early caregiving to the development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress response system and with a conceptual model in which developing temperament is characterized by the interplay of emotional reactivity and the emergence of the ability to effortfully regulate this reactivity using attention.

Closing the Achievement Gap through Modification of Neurocognitive and Neuroendocrine Function: Results from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of an Innovative Approach to the Education of Children in Kindergarten

“…Recent advances in neuroscience suggest that poverty-related gaps in achievement are accompanied by poverty-related differences in brain structure and function [2]–[4] and differences in the regulation of attention, emotion, stress response physiology, and executive functions important for early learning [5], [6]. These findings support the hypothesis that SES-related gaps in academic abilities at school entry are in part attributable to effects of poverty on children’s self-regulation development [7]–[9].…”

Cumulative effects of early poverty on cortisol in young children: Moderation by autonomic nervous system activity

“…Findings from this sample have also shown that sensitive parenting behavior observed when children are infants is associated with a higher level of cortisol reactivity to an emotionally arousing situation when children are 7 months old and with an overall lower level of cortisol in response to emotional arousal when children are 15 months old (Blair et al, 2008). Findings from that previous analysis also indicated that child temperament, namely distress to novelty, was associated with a higher level of cortisol at age 15 months.…”

Does socioeconomic status mediate racial differences in the cortisol response in middle childhood?

“…Socioeconomic status also shows influence on motivation, attention, and cognitive control (e.g., Blair et al, 2008;Pilgrim, Marin, & Lupien, 2010), which may have downstream consequences on physiology and health. Yet, these findings also suggest that stressors that may be experienced broadly across SES strata (e.g., family conflict), as measured with the LEQ in the current study, may not be the most relevant or deleterious aspects of environmental stress impacting children's health and physiological functioning.…”