Faculty Bibliography

The relation of observed emotional reactivity and regulation in infancy to executive function in early childhood was examined in a prospective longitudinal sample of 1,292 children from predominantly low-income and rural communities. Children participated in a fear eliciting task at ages 7, 15, and 24 months and completed an executive function battery at age 48 months. Results indicated that the relation of child negative emotional reactivity at 15 months of age to executive functioning at 48 months of age was dependent on observed emotion regulation. High levels of executive function ability were observed among children who exhibited high levels of emotional reactivity and high levels of the regulation of this reactivity. In contrast, low levels of executive function ability were observed among children who exhibited high levels of reactivity but low levels of regulation. Among children exhibiting low levels of emotional reactivity, emotion regulation was unrelated to executive functioning. Moreover, emotionally reactive infants exhibiting high levels of emotion regulation were more likely to have primary caregivers who exhibited high levels of positive parenting behavior in a parent-child interaction task. Results provide support for a neurobiologically informed developmental model in which the regulation of emotional arousal is one mechanism whereby supportive environments are associated with higher levels of self-regulation ability for highly reactive infants. Findings are discussed with implications for differential susceptibility and biological sensitivity theories of child by context interaction.

Socioeconomic status (SES) has been linked to functioning across a variety of neurocognitive domains including language, memory, executive functioning, and social-emotional processing. We review these findings and discuss the ways in which socioeconomic context may shape neural processes such that these skills are supported by different neurobiological pathways in children from lower versus higher SES backgrounds. Moreover, we consider the mechanisms by which SES may be related to specific neurocognitive functions. Specifically, we focus on linguistic exposure and stress as two main pathways through which SES could influence neurocognitive processes and shape relations between the neural and behavioral levels of functioning. Finally, suggestions for conceptualizing and measuring SES in future work are offered.

Efforts to bolster the school readiness of Latine children from low-income and immigrant homes have focused on fostering parent engagement in children's education. In assessing parent engagement, most measures center school-based activities in alignment with middle class, European American dominant norms, missing the multiple ways that Latine families engage with their children to support their educational experiences and development. Additionally, studies of predictors of Latine parent engagement have mainly focused on parent demographic and linguistic factors, limiting our understanding of how to support parent engagement equitably. Using a measure of parent engagement sensitive to culturally contextualized behaviors of Latine families, this study describes the ways Latine parents living in historically disinvested neighborhoods in New York City engage in their children's learning at home and in school during a nationally charged anti-immigrant, anti-Latine sociopolitical climate. We also examine whether immigration enforcement threat and parent health are associated with Latine family engagement in home and school-based activities. Data come from a larger study conducted with Latine parents (n=103; 42% immigrant) of pre-K children. Descriptive results indicate that despite a charged sociopolitical context, levels of engagement in children's education and development across multiple domains were comparable with mean levels established by the developers. Findings from regression analyses demonstrated that above and beyond demographic, linguistic and financial factors, immigration enforcement threat and parent health were associated with aspects of family engagement in young children's learning among Latine families in low-income communities. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Efforts to bolster the school readiness of Latinx children from low-income homes in the United States have focused on fostering parent engagement in children"™s education. Measurement of parent engagement in early childhood however, has been critiqued for having too narrow a focus on school-based involvement and missing other aspects of Latinx parent engagement. Using a recently developed culturally sensitive assessment of Latinx parent engagement, we test for associations between dimensions of Latinx parent engagement in learning and indicators of school readiness in a diverse sample of Latinx families (n = 114). We find significant associations between multiple dimensions of Latinx parent engagement and indicators of child school readiness. In addition to promoting parent-teacher connections, efforts to support Latinx school readiness equitably are encouraged to attend to various culturally relevant aspects of Latinx parent engagement in early childhood. In particular, investing in programing that supports parents"™ well-being and capacity for home-based engagement in learning may be a promising way to support the school readiness of Latinx children living in historically disinvested neighborhoods.

A large body of research has documented racial/ethnic disparities in childhood obesity in the United States (US) but less work has sought to understand differences within racial groups. Longitudinal studies are needed to describe BMI trajectories across development, particularly for Black children from immigrant families who have been underrepresented in childhood obesity research. The current study utilizes BMI data collected longitudinally from ages 5 to 8 years and growth mixture modeling to (1) identify and visualize growth patterns among Black children from primarily Caribbean immigrant families, and (2) to compare these patterns to growth trajectories among Black children from US-born families. First, we identified four classes or trajectories of growth for Black children from immigrant families. The largest trajectory (70% of the sample) maintained non-overweight throughout the study period. A second trajectory developed overweight by age 8 (25%). Two small trajectory groups demonstrated high rates of moderate and severe obesity-i.e., specifically, a trajectory of accelerated weight gain ending in moderate/severe obesity (3%), and a trajectory of early severe obesity with BMI decreasing slightly with age (2%). We identified a very similar four class/trajectory model among Black children from US-born families, and compared the model to the one for children from immigrant families using multi-group growth mixture modeling. We found that the patterns of growth did not differ significantly between the populations, with two notable exceptions. Among Black children from immigrant families, ∼ 5% were classified into the two heavier BMI trajectories, compared to ∼ 11% of children from US-born families. Additionally, among children with an accelerated weight gain trajectory, children from immigrant families had lower BMIs on average at each time point than children from US-born families. These findings describe the multiple trajectories of weight gain among Black children from immigrant families and demonstrate that although these trajectories are largely similar to those of Black children from US-born families, the differences provide some evidence for lower obesity risk among Black children from immigrant families compared to Black children from US-born families. As this study is the first to describe BMI trajectories for Black children from immigrant families across early and middle childhood, future work is needed to replicate these results and to explore differences in heavier weight trajectories between children from immigrant and US-born families.

Families of color living in historically disinvested neighborhoods face a multitude of health disparities which have been exacerbated by COVID-19 and the resulting strategies to mitigate its transmission. School closure, which occurred with little warning and few, if any, resources for preparation, disrupted multiple aspects of families' lives; these disruptions are anticipated to adversely impact mental health and well-being. The current study aims to advance understanding of the experiences of families of young children of color during the pandemic by utilizing a natural experiment design to test impact on child and parent mental health and sleep in the context of COVID-19 related school closure among families in historically disinvested neighborhoods. Data from this study come from an ongoing study of 281 families of color enrolled in 41 pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs in neighborhoods across New York City (NYC). In NYC, school closure occurred on March 16, 2020, during a data collection period involving phone surveys with parents; the quasi-experimental design allows for comparison of the 198 families who had completed the survey prior to March 16, and the 83 families who completed the survey after March 16, using identical protocols and procedures. Results demonstrate poorer mental health among parents surveyed after school closure as compared to before school closure. No differences were found for parent sleep, child mental health, or child sleep. Implications of this work highlight the need for structural and systemic supports for families faced with compounding stressors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closure.

Emotion knowledge (EK) is a malleable set of skills that is central to social interactions and school success during early childhood. The current study describes an anti-racist approach to adapting an EK measure that assesses knowledge of facial expressions to be ecologically valid for young children of color attending pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) programs in a large urban school district. This approach involved (1) attending to race/ethnicity in selection of visual stimuli, (2) ensuring appropriate translation and language for administration, and (3) exploring the functioning of the measure within a racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse group of children. A total of 235 children (67.4% Latinx, 14.1% non-Latinx Black, 7.1% non-Latinx White, 7.8% Asian, 3.6% another racial/ethnicity) were assessed in English (74%) or Spanish (26%) during the fall of pre-K (mean age = 4.4). Both English and Spanish versions appear to have similar reliability, although accuracy levels were lower when administered in Spanish. No differences in mean accuracy scores were found across racial/ethnic groups or for boys versus girls. This study contributes to the growing literature necessary to advance anti-racist research in affective science.