Connecting the dots: Examining the role of parental beliefs and preschoolers’ affect and engagement in predicting parent-child number exploration during a meaningful math experience

The current study examined the frequency and quality of how 3- to 4-year-old children and their parents explore the relations between symbolic and non-symbolic quantities in the context of a playful math experience, as well as the role of both parent and child factors in this exploration. Preschool children’s numerical knowledge was assessed while parents completed a survey about the number-related experiences they share with their children at home, and their math-related beliefs. Parent-child dyads were then videotaped playing a modified version of the card game War. Results suggest that parents and children explored quantity explicitly on only half of the cards and card pairs played, and dyads of young children and those with lower number knowledge tended to be most explicit in their quantity exploration. Dyads with older children, on the other hand, often completed their turns without discussing the numbers at all, likely because they were knowledgeable enough about numbers that they could move through the game with ease. However, when dyads did explore the quantities explicitly, they focused on identifying numbers symbolically, used non-symbolic card information interchangeably with symbolic information to make the quantity comparison judgments, and in some instances, emphasized the connection between the symbolic and non-symbolic number representations on the cards. Parents reported that math experiences such as card game play and quantity comparison occurred relatively infrequently at home compared to activities geared towards more foundational practice of number, such as counting out loud and naming numbers. However, parental beliefs were important in predicting both the frequency of at-home math engagement as well as the quality of these experiences. In particular, parents’ specific beliefs about their children’s abilities and interests were associated with the frequency of home math activities, while parents’ math-related ability beliefs and values along with children’s engagement in the card game were associated with the quality of dyads’ number exploration during the card game. Taken together, these findings suggest that card games can be an engaging context for parent-preschooler exploration of numbers in multiple representations, and suggests that parents’ beliefs and children’s level of engagement are important predictors of this exploration.

Experimentally Testing the Effect of Parent-Adolescent Conflict on HIV Risk, and Investigation of a Neurobiological Moderator of This Effect

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a condition in which immune cells become destroyed such that the body may become unable to fight off infections. Engaging in risk-taking behaviors (e.g., substance use) puts people at heightened risk for HIV infection, with mid-to-late adolescents at increasing risk (Leigh & Stall, 1993). Environmental and neurological reasons have been suggested for increased risk-taking among adolescents. First, family-level precursors such as parent-adolescent conflict have been significantly associated with and may pose risk for engaging in substance use and risk-taking (Duncan, Duncan, Biglan, & Ary, 1998). Thus, parent-adolescent conflict may be an important proximal influence on HIV risk behaviors (Lester et al., 2010; Rowe, Wang, Greenbaum, & Liddle, 2008). Yet, the temporal relation between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent HIV risk-taking behaviors is still unknown. Second, at-risk adolescents may carry a neurobiological predisposition for engaging in trait-like expressions of disinhibited behavior and other risk-taking behaviors (Iacono, Malone, & McGue, 2008). When exposed to interpersonally stressful situations, their likelihood of engagement in HIV risk behaviors may increase. To investigate the role of parent-adolescent conflict in adolescent HIV risk-taking behaviors, 49 adolescents ages 14-17 and their parent were randomly assigned to complete a standardized discussion task to discuss a control topic or a conflict topic. Immediately after the discussion, adolescents completed a laboratory risk-taking measure. In a follow-up visit, eligible adolescents underwent electrophysiological (EEG) recording while completing a task designed to assess the presence of a neurobiological marker for behavioral disinhibition which I hypothesized would moderate the links between conflict and risk-taking. First, findings indicated that during the discussion task, adolescents in the conflict condition evidenced a significantly greater psychophysiological stress response relative to adolescents in the control condition. Second, a neurobiological marker of behavioral disinhibition moderated the relation between discussion condition and adolescent risk-taking, such that adolescents evidencing relatively high levels of a neurobiological marker related to sensation-seeking evidenced greater levels of risk-taking following the conflict condition, relative to the control condition. Lastly, I observed no significant relation between parent-adolescent conflict, the neurobiological marker of behavioral disinhibition and adolescent engagement in real-world risk-taking behavior.

Unemployment, parental distress and youth emotional well-being: The moderation roles of parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation

We investigated, in a sample of 112 unemployed parents of adolescents aged 10-19 years, the links between parental distress and change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment, and the moderation roles of parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlations. Further, simple moderation, additive moderation, and moderated moderation models of regression were performed to analyze the effects of parental distress, parent-youth relationship and financial deprivation in predicting change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment. Results show that parental distress moderated by parent-youth relationship predicted levels of change in youth emotional problems related to parental unemployment. This study provides evidence that during job loss, parental distress is linked to youth emotional well-being and that parent-youth relationships play an important moderation role. This raises the importance of further researching parental distress impacts on youth well-being, especially during periods of high unemployment rates.

READY FOR KINDERGARTEN: A TRAINING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO ENCOURAGE PARENT-CHILD CONVERSATION DURING THE PRESCHOOL YEARS

Many children in the United States begin kindergarten unprepared to converse in the academic language surrounding instruction, putting them at greater risk for later language and reading difficulties. Importantly, correlational research has shown there are certain experiences prior to kindergarten that foster the oral language skills needed to understand and produce academic language. The focus of this dissertation was on increasing one of these experiences: parent-child conversations about abstract and non-present concepts, known as decontextualized language (DL). Decontextualized language involves talking about non-present concepts such as events that happened in the past or future, or abstract discussions such as providing explanations or defining unknown words. As caregivers’ decontextualized language input to children aged three to five is consistently correlated with kindergarten oral language skills and later reading achievement, it is surprising no experimental research has been done to establish this relation causally. The study described in this dissertation filled this literature gap by designing, implementing, and evaluating a decontextualized language training program for parents of 4-year-old children (N=30). After obtaining an initial measure of decontextualized language, parents were randomly assigned to a control condition or training condition, the latter of which educated parents about decontextualized language and why it is important. All parents then audio-recorded four mealtime conversations over the next month, which were transcribed and reliably coded for decontextualized language. Results indicated that trained parents boosted their DL from roughly 17 percent of their total utterances at baseline to approximately 50 percent by the mid-point of the study, and remained at these boosted levels throughout the duration of the study. Children’s DL was also boosted by similar margins, but no improvement in children’s oral language skills was observed, measured prior to, and one month following training. Further, exploratory analyses pointed to parents’ initial use of DL and their theories of the malleability of intelligence (i.e., growth mindsets) as moderators of training gains. Altogether, these findings are a first step in establishing DL as a viable strategy for giving children the oral language skills needed to begin kindergarten ready to succeed in the classroom.