AT-RISK RESEARCH PROGRAM

As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, inner-city children from disadvantaged neighborhoods were recruited in Grades 1, 4 and 7. Consequently, they have been studied through adolescence and young adulthood, and into parenthood, offering the unique opportunity to study two generations. As the original participants have since participated in a number of studies with their children, offspring development and outcomes are being examined. Currently, we are in the early stages of the third generation. In following this sample, the foci of ongoing studies include, among others: (1) developmental trajectories from infancy through adulthood; (2) long-term outcomes; (3) health and development; (4) risk and protective factors; (5) parent-child and peer relationships; (6) transition to formal schooling, transition from elementary school to high school, academic performance, and school achievement; and (7) social, emotional and behavioral competence. Within this project, current studies in my lab examine several different developmental domains.

Below are a few examples:

• Emotional competence is linked to concurrent and later social adjustment and competence, and is thus an important predictor of healthy child development. Emotion regulation, expression and communication are important foci in some of our studies.

• Early maladaptive child behaviors have been linked to later health-risk behaviors such as smoking and early sexual activity, as well as negative health outcomes in the next generation. Prospectively following individuals, in particular women, can explain the impact of early behavior problems and health-risk behaviors on the next generation.

• Child compliance with maternal requests is an important index of toddlers’ ability to self-regulate and behave in a socially acceptable manner. In addition, child compliance behaviors have been linked to autonomy, mutuality and partner dominance. Assertive types of noncompliant behavior reflect children's emerging development of autonomy. Children's compliant and noncompliant behavior is influenced by their mothers' request strategies, which can be influenced by different risk factors. Observing mother-child interactions within a naturalistic context can highlight the influence of early risk status on request strategies, as well as indicate how poor strategies affect their children's compliant and noncompliant behavior.

• Becoming a distinct person, while maintaining close relationships with others, is a challenge central to social competence. This challenge is particularly noteworthy during middle childhood, a critical transition period during which parents begin to gradually relinquish control over their children. Investigating this developmental process is essential in families with histories of psychosocial risk, where the likelihood of psychological and behavior problems is increased. Observing the constructs of autonomy, mutuality, and partner dominance during at-risk mother-child interactions elucidates our understanding of the intergenerational transfer of risk and the development of competence in vulnerable populations.

• Studies examining how the mother-child relationship is vital to the development of emotion communication skills in children provide a significant context in which we can understand how emotions are socialized, expressed, and regulated.

• Studies examining parenting patterns, such as maternal reactions to children's performance during teaching tasks, in relation to children's subsequent academic outcomes (e.g., cognitive and academic achievement and success).

• Studies examining the contribution of maternal childhood risk status, child age and gender to the prediction of maternal emotional expressiveness and emotionality, as well as parenting behaviors, are being studied.

• The quality of parent-child interactions over time (beginning in infancy) and as a function of risk status is being studied. Constructs that are examined include, but are not limited to: parenting stress, temperament, emotional availability, maternal expressivity, maternal autonomy support and co-regulation processes.

• Positive and negative parenting behaviors are known to be predictive of internalizing problems among children. In addition, shared interactions and emotion behaviors between parent and child play an important role in the development of children’s wellbeing. Observationally studying the nuances of parenting and parent-child interactions in various developmental contexts and across age may allow for a deeper understanding of how these factors work together to either increase the risk of internalizing problems (or other behavioral or psychosocial issues) or to play a more protective role.

• Maternal emotion socialization practices specifically how mothers respond to their children's emotional displays, could impact youth's socioemotional competence and behavioral adjustment. Amont at-risk families, mothers' ability to engage in supportive practices (e.g., empathy, problem solving) may be compromised and they may use more punitive and/or dismissive responses instead, thus increasing the risk of poor outcomes among vulnerable youth. Observing at-risk mother-child dyads across developmental periods can shed light on the effect of risk and protective factors on maternal emotion socialization practices and their unique impact on youth over time.

• The broader contexts in which parent-child relationships are embedded play a pivotal role in children’s psychological and behavioral adjustment. Notably, neighborhood disadvantage can affect parenting behaviors and children’s behavioral problems directly and indirectly, thereby contributing to unhealthy dynamics in the parent-child dyad. Several studies further suggest that neighborhood disadvantage could compound the effects of negative parenting behaviors such as physical discipline on children’s behavioral problems. Our research seeks to identify the specific conditions that propel some children with behavioral problems towards a lifetime of difficulties. To better understand these pathways, their research takes a holistic approach that considers individual-, family-, and neighborhood-level risk factors simultaneously. Neighborhood disadvantage is captured through several indicators that reflect risk across several domains: social, economic, health, safety, and leisure. By examining these risk factors using prospective samples followed from childhood to adulthood and person-centered analyses such as mixture modelling, their research is designed to delineate the circumstances that underlie the positive and negative developmental pathways followed by children with behavioral problems.   

The Concordia Project is a collaborative project under the joint direction of
Drs. Stack and Serbin.