TWO-GENERATION APPROACH TO IMPROVING EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL REGULATION

Boston College, Chestnut Hill MA

Investigators

Abstract

The present study builds on theoretical and empirical prior work indicating that children's EF skills are important precursors to emotional and behavioral regulation and that these skills are likely best promoted when addressed across classroom and home contexts. Specifically, the proposed study will exploit a randomized experimental design to evaluate the effects of a direct child training targeting EF on children's emotional and behavioral regulation. The direct child training will consist of weekly, 30-minute sessions comprised of games modeled after Tominey and McClelland's (2011) circle time games, focusing on directly teaching children how to switch between two different sets of rules (i.e., cognitive flexibility) and inhibit automatic responses (i.e., inhibitory control). In addition, the present study will examine the value added of training both children and parents in these areas. The parent-training curriculum is focused on developing strong parent-child interactions with a specific emphasis placed on teaching parents the developmental importance of EF. Each training session will teach parents a new skill and give them the tools to foster these new skills in their children. Children and parents will be evaluated pre- and post-intervention.