MethodParticipants 184 five-year-old (M age=5.63, SD=0.22) kindergarten students from 30 classrooms in central Illinois

Teacher ratingsThe second edition of the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC-2) is a multidimensional rating system measuring adaptive and maladaptive behaviors in children (Reynolds et al., 2004). It was used to examine teacher reports of children’s behavioral tendencies.

Procedure•Day-Night Stroop Task: In this task, children responded to day and night picture cards. Participants were instructed to respond to the moon/star picture card as “day” and the sun picture card as “night.” Once the child completed practice trials, the experimenter administered 16 test trials. The 16 test trials included 8 “day” (d) and 8 “night” (n) cards that were presented in a pseudorandom order (Diamond & Taylor, 1996). A sum score for each child was calculated based on the total number of correct responses across the 16 trials.

•Bear and Dragon Task: This task involved the participant playing a Simon-says type game with bear and dragon puppets. The experimenter instructed the child to listen to the bear’s commands and to ignore the dragon’s commands. Following correct responses during the practice trial, 12 commands were administered by the experimenter. For each bear command, the child’s behavioral responses were scored as 0 (failure to move), 1 (partial movement), 2 (wrong movement), or 3 (full movement). For each dragon command, the child’s responses were scored as 0 (full/correct movement), 1 (wrong movement), 2 (partial movement), or 3 (failure to move or full inhibition of movement; Kochanska et al., 1996). Total Bear Activation and Dragon Inhibition sum scores were recorded for each child.

•Behavioral Observations: Every child was observed three times for 15 minutes per observation. Behavioral observations were obtained through momentary time-sampling using an adapted version of the BASC-2 Student Observation System (BASC-2 SOS; Kamphaus & Reynolds, 2004). During 15-minute, 30-second interval observations, experimenters coded participant's adaptive and problem behaviors. Observers also coded the child’s activity and teacher interactions (positive, negative, and prompting). Observers were randomly assigned to be double coded by two researchers to ensure accuracy.

AbstractThis study examined whether individual differences in effortful control are related to kindergarteners’ observed classroom behavior and teachers’ ratings of behavior. The presentation’s purpose is to familiarize participants with theories about temperament, effortful control tasks, and a behavioral coding system. Content will include a discussion of effortful control, teacher ratings, and momentary time-sampling behavioral observations. Benefits include developing a better understanding of how temperament and behavior are related, and learning about implications for practice.

IntroductionEmotion regulation has become an increasingly popular target of intervention by school psychologists, particularly in light of recent trends in school aggression. The goal of this poster is to discuss links between emotion regulation and individual differences in children’s temperament. The current study examined the relations between children’s classroom behavior, teachers’ ratings of behavior, and individual differences in temperament. More specifically, it focuses on effortful control, the temperamental process reflecting the ability to suppress a dominant response in favor of a subdominant response (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). As school psychologists, assessing a child’s effortful control abilities may help in promoting positive behaviors in the classroom. Past research indicates that effortful control increases with age: Younger children have a difficult time with effortful control tasks, but they become relatively easy for 6-to-7-year-olds (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Although most children show great improvements in effortful control by age 5, significant individual differences still remain. These individual differences in self regulatory abilities can influence their social development and adjustment during their school-aged years. Previous studies examining effortful control have examined it in preschool-aged children; however less is known about effortful control in kindergartners.

In the current study, kindergarten children scoring low in effortful control are hypothesized to have more maladaptive behaviors and to receive more negative teacher interactions and teacher prompts than children high in effortful control. Children scoring high in effortful control are hypothesized to exhibit more positive behaviors than children low in effortful control. Children scoring high in effortful control are also hypothesized to have less problematic behavior as rated by teachers using the BASC-2 TRS.

Effortful Control and Emotion Regulation in KindergartnersNicole A. Moore Katherine A. Gioia Lauren A. Carlson Renée M. Tobin W. Joel Schneider

Results & Discussion•Both the Dragon Inhibition and Bear Activation scores were related to teacher ratings of greater adaptive skills on the BASC-2 TRS; however, there was no evidence of a significant relation between the Day-Night Stroop performance and adaptive skills.•As expected, small positive correlations were found between children’s performance on the Dragon Inhibition Task and on-task behavior at school, although there was no evidence of similar correlations for the Bear Activation or Day-Night Stroop Tasks. There was also no evidence that the effortful control tasks were related to off-task or disruptive behaviors.•In addition, scores on the Day-Night Stroop task and the Bear Activation Task scores were negatively correlated with positive teacher interactions, whereas the Bear Activation and Dragon Inhibition Task scores were inversely correlated with negative teacher interactions. The Dragon Inhibition Task was also negatively correlated with teacher prompts.•Consistent with hypotheses, all three measures of effortful control were inversely correlated with BASC-2 TRS-P Behavioral Symptom Index scores. Results also indicated that children with higher effortful control had less observed maladaptive behaviors in the classroom setting. This suggests that children high in effortful control receive, and likely require, less attention from teachers. These findings also suggest that children high in effortful control were rated by teachers as having fewer symptoms of clinical problems relative to their peers. •With greater knowledge of a child’s effortful control and how it relates to behavior, it may further school psychologists’ abilities to work effectively with students who demonstrate internalizing and externalizing behaviors.

Table 1. Correlations among Effortful Control Tasks, BASC-2 TRS-P scores, and Observed Behaviors

Measure 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1) Effortful Control Dragon Inhibition Task .07 .18* -.22** .12* .15* -.15 -.09 -.09 -.25** -.30**

2) Effortful Control Bear Activation Task __ .34 -.14* .17* .07 -.05 -.05 -.16* -.18* -.11

3) Effortful Control Day/Night Stroop __ -.20** .09 .00 -.02 .05 -.19* -.09 -.12

4) BASC-2 Behavioral Symptoms Index __ -.68** -.20** .22** .10 .27** .41** .51**

5) BASC-2 Adaptability __ .22* -.22** -.04 -.17* -.23** -.24**

6) Observed on-task behavior __ -.91** -.43** -.08 -.25** -.22**

7) Observed off-task behavior __ .25** .15 .23** .22**

8) Observed disruptive behavior __ -.09 .31** .25**

9) Observed positive teacher interactions __ -.01 -.04

10) Observed negative teacher interactions __ .64**

11) Observed teacher prompts __

Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01.