TY - JOUR
T1 - Sustained attention in infancy
T2 - A foundation for the development of multiple aspects of self-regulation for children in poverty
AU - Brandes-Aitken, Annie
AU - Braren, Stephen
AU - Swingler, Margaret
AU - Voegtline, Kristin
AU - Blair, Clancy
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Grants R01 HD51502 and P01 HD 39667 , with cofunding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse . The role of the first author was also supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant DGE1342536. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2019/8
Y1 - 2019/8
N2 - There are many avenues by which early life poverty relates to the development of school readiness. Few studies, however, have examined the extent to which sustained attention, a central component of self-regulation in infancy, mediates relations between poverty-related risk and cognitive and emotional self-regulation at school entry. To investigate longitudinal relations among poverty-related risk, sustained attention in infancy, and self-regulation prior to school entry, we analyzed data from the Family Life Project, a large prospective longitudinal sample (N = 1292)of children and their primary caregivers in predominantly low-income and nonurban communities. We used structural equation modeling to assess the extent to which a latent variable of infant sustained attention, measured in a naturalistic setting, mediated the associations between cumulative poverty-related risk and three domains of self-regulation. We constructed a latent variable of infant sustained attention composed of a measure of global sustained attention and a task-based sustained attention measure at 7 and 15 months of age. Results indicated that infant sustained attention was negatively associated with poverty-related risk and positively associated with a direct assessment of executive function abilities and teacher-reported effortful control and emotion regulation in pre-kindergarten. Mediation analysis indicated that the association between poverty-related risk and each self-regulation outcome was partially mediated by infant attention. These results provide support for a developmental model of self-regulation whereby attentional abilities in infancy act as a mechanism linking the effects of early-life socioeconomic adversity with multiple aspects of self-regulation in early childhood.
AB - There are many avenues by which early life poverty relates to the development of school readiness. Few studies, however, have examined the extent to which sustained attention, a central component of self-regulation in infancy, mediates relations between poverty-related risk and cognitive and emotional self-regulation at school entry. To investigate longitudinal relations among poverty-related risk, sustained attention in infancy, and self-regulation prior to school entry, we analyzed data from the Family Life Project, a large prospective longitudinal sample (N = 1292)of children and their primary caregivers in predominantly low-income and nonurban communities. We used structural equation modeling to assess the extent to which a latent variable of infant sustained attention, measured in a naturalistic setting, mediated the associations between cumulative poverty-related risk and three domains of self-regulation. We constructed a latent variable of infant sustained attention composed of a measure of global sustained attention and a task-based sustained attention measure at 7 and 15 months of age. Results indicated that infant sustained attention was negatively associated with poverty-related risk and positively associated with a direct assessment of executive function abilities and teacher-reported effortful control and emotion regulation in pre-kindergarten. Mediation analysis indicated that the association between poverty-related risk and each self-regulation outcome was partially mediated by infant attention. These results provide support for a developmental model of self-regulation whereby attentional abilities in infancy act as a mechanism linking the effects of early-life socioeconomic adversity with multiple aspects of self-regulation in early childhood.
KW - Attention
KW - Emotion Regulation
KW - Executive function
KW - Infancy
KW - Poverty
KW - Self-regulation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.04.006
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.04.006
M3 - Article
C2 - 31039447
AN - SCOPUS:85064747861
SN - 0022-0965
VL - 184
SP - 192
EP - 209
JO - Journal of experimental child psychology
JF - Journal of experimental child psychology
ER -