The development of self regulation: foundation skills for children’s health and wellbeing

 What is self regulation- the flexible and cooncious control of thourhts, geelings and behaviors
that stems from executive function profess of attention, working memory and aspects of
emotional regulation
 Self regulation has emerged as a key predictor of a variety of outcomes
o Social behavioral competence, health-related behaviors and outcomes, short and long
term academic success, long term outcomes with wages and employment
 Cumulative risk and Children’s Self regulation- data indicates that low income English learners
start lower on self regulation scores at 4 years old and continue to have lower self regulation
scores through the years meanwhile lower income, English speakers learn self regulation much
faster and catch up to not low-income, English speakers who are at an advantage. (Wanless,
McClelland, Acock and Tominey, 2011)
o These kids enter school with difficulty learning these skills due to needing to learn
another language
 Childrent who had stronger self regulation had stronger achievement regardless of early risk
factor- chronic and persistent poverty, low education level, minority status, low income-
regardless
 Factors that influence the development of self regulations
o Parent and caregiving
 Best with autonomy support – allowing kids to solve problems and step back
 Extensive use of media is related to poorer self-regulation
 Adult use of media also is detrimental of children’s self regulation
 Provide fewer opportunities for children to self regulation
 Methods for Studying self regulation
o Teacher, caregiver and self report- early developmental intrusment
o Head-toe-knees-shoulder task or NIH toolbox, Minnesota executive function scale
 5 minute game ages 4 and 8. Taps childrent’s attemtopm or cognitive flexinility
working meory and inhibitory control
 Interventions to strengthen self-regulation
o PATH, Tools of the Mind, mindfulness training Circle Time games, (Tominey &
McClelland, 2015)
o Interventions are most effective when they include multiple levels and contexts and are
integrates across domains and over time
 Self regulation is an important predictor of health development, can be a compensatory factor
for childrent experiencing early risk
o Recent measurement indicates that we can reliability measure self regulations
 Clinicans should screen for self-regulation in the preschool years
