Minor Illnesses, Temperament, and Toddler Social Functioning

Abstract

Research findings Minor illnesses, such as upper respiratory infections, stomachaches, and fevers, have been associated with children’s decreased activity and increased irritability. Mothers of children who are frequently ill report more child behavior problems; however, previous research in this area has yet to simultaneously examine children’s temperament. This investigation examined whether experience with recurrent, minor illnesses and negative emotionality worked together to predict young children’s social functioning. This multi-method study utilized a sample of 110 daycare-attending children. Nurses went to the daycare centers weekly to perform health screens on the participating children. Minor illness experience was represented using a proportion created by dividing the number of illness diagnoses by the total number of health screenings completed from the time the child was enrolled in the study through his or her second birthday. Toddlers’ negative emotionality and social behavior were assessed using mothers’ and fathers’ reports. The two dimensions of negative emotionality and minor illness experience operated in different ways such that anger worked additively with minor illness experience and fearfulness interacted with minor illness experience to predict social behavior. Children who were described as more temperamentally angry displayed less social competence especially when they also experienced high proportions of minor illness. Temperamentally fearful children exhibited more externalizing problems when they experienced a higher frequency of illness whereas fearfulness was not associated to externalizing problems for children who experienced low proportions of illness. Practice or Policy Children’s frequent experience with minor illnesses combined with negative emotionality appears to place toddlers at a heightened risk for exhibiting behavior problems. These findings have implications for child and family well-being as well as interactions with childcare providers and peers within childcare settings. Interventions could be developed to target “at risk” children.

Preschoolers’ temperament and social functioning in novel and routine contexts

“…The Negative Affectivity (NA) component of temperament encompasses dispositional tendencies to experience and to remain in unpleasant emotional states (Anger, Fear, Sadness, Discomfort and Falling Reactivity). Inverse associations between NA and children’s social competence (SC) are consistently documented (for a review, see Fabes et al, 2008 ; Eggum-Wilkens et al, 2016 ), even among preschoolers (see Denham et al, 2001 ; Kolak et al, 2013 ).…”