Background: Premature infants may be at risk for lower effortful control, and subsequent lower academic achievement, peer competence, and emotional and physical wellness throughout the lifespan. However, because prematurity is related to obstetrical and neonatal complications, it is unclear what may drive the effect. Effortful control also has a strong heritable component; therefore, environmental factors during pregnancy and the neonatal period may interact with genetic factors to predict effortful control development. In this study, I aimed to dissect the influences of genetics, prematurity, and neonatal and obstetrical complications on the development of effortful control from 12 months to 10 years using a twin cohort. Methods: This study used data from the Arizona Twin Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of approximately 350 pairs of twins. Twins were primarily Hispanic/Latinx (23.8%-27.1%) and non-Hispanic/Latinx White (53.2%-57.8%), and families ranged in socioeconomic status with around one-third falling below or near the poverty line. Of the twins, 62.6% were born prematurely. Effortful control was assessed via parent report at six waves. Results: There was not a significant relationship between gestational age and effortful control regardless of whether obstetrical and neonatal complications were controlled for. Biometric twin modeling revealed that the attentional focusing subdomain of effortful control was highly heritable. Gestational age did not moderate genetic and environmental estimates. Conclusions: The findings help inform the risk assessment of prematurity and provide evidence for differing etiology of each subdomain of effortful control and the strong role of genetics in effortful control development.

Parenting practices have been commonly studied as important predictors of children’s social outcomes in European American families. However, researchers have rarely investigated relations between parental factors and child social outcomes in families living in sub-Saharan regions, such as Mozambique. This study investigated longitudinal relations between mothers’ perceived social support, mothers’ parenting behaviors, and children’s social competence during middle childhood using longitudinal data from the Mozambique site of the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes (FAMELO) project (N = 609; Wave 1 child Mage = 8.96 years; 49.6% female). Mothers reported their perceived social support, parenting practices (i.e., parental engagement, modeling, monitoring), and children’s social competence. The half-longitudinal mediation model did not support the hypothesized indirect effects from maternal social support to parenting practices, and parenting practices to children’s social competence. However, mothers’ social support positively predicted their modeling behaviors and children’s social competence. Moreover, “parent effects” and “child effects” were found between maternal parenting practices and children’s social competence across two years, but relations were not always as hypothesized or consistent with within-time relations. Mothers’ engagement and monitoring behaviors at Wave 1 negatively predicted children’s social competence at Wave 2. Children’s social competence at Wave 1 negatively predicted maternal modeling behaviors and positively predicted maternal monitoring behaviors at Wave 2. The pattern of associations between mothers’ parenting practices and children’s social competence did not differ for boys and girls. This study provided novel information suggestive of longitudinal associations among mothers’ social support, maternal parenting practices, and children’s social competence in middle childhood and shed light on the complex transactions between mothers and children in Mozambican families. Suggestions for future research were provided to facilitate a better understanding of the support mothers perceived from their social networks, parenting behaviors, and child social development in the sub-Saharan African context.

The present study examined the relations between indices of parental involvement (parental aspirations, expectations, help with schoolwork, home learning and language materials) and children's academic achievement in a sample of 291 kindergarten-2nd grade children. Children's academic achievement was assessed with the Woodcock Johnson and parents reported on expectations, aspirations, help with schoolwork, home learning and language materials. Latent Growth Curve Models were used to test whether there was growth in the parent involvement variables and whether growth in the parent involvement variables predicted growth in academic achievement. The intercept for parental expectations was the only intercept to predict the intercept of academic achievement. Rates of growth in parental expectations, parental help with schoolwork, and home learning materials predicted rates of growth in academic achievement.

This study examined the influence of childhood aggression, peer exclusion and associating with deviant peers on the development of antisocial behavior in early adolescence. To gain a stronger understanding of how these factors are associated with antisocial behavior and delinquency, multiple alternative pathways were examined based on additive, mediation and incidental models. A parallel process growth model was specified to assess whether early childhood aggression and peer exclusion (in 1st grade) and intra-individual increases in aggressive behaviors and exclusion through childhood (grades 1 to 6) are predictive of associating with deviant peers (in 7th grade) and antisocial behavior (in 8th grade). Based on a sample of 383 children (193 girls and 190 boys), results showed the strongest support for an additive effects model in which early childhood aggression, increases in aggression, increases in peer exclusion and associating with more deviant peers all predicted antisocial behavior. These findings have implications for how children's psychological adjustment is impacted by their behavioral propensities and peer relational context and the importance of examining developmental processes within and between children over time.