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| Abstract |
Adolescent mothers face a number of challenges that place their families at risk for less optimal parenting and poor child outcomes. For example, children of adolescent mothers are at risk for higher levels of dysregulated patterns of emotion. Emotion dysregulation is a key element to the development of psychopathology later in life. However, important predictors of emotion dysregulation, such as the child’s early cognitive and language development have yet to be studied in samples of Latina mothers or adolescent mothers and their children. The current study aims to further explore the longitudinal relationship between children’s cognitive and language development and subsequent emotion dysregulation in a sample of Latina adolescent mothers and their toddlers. The present study consists of 149 adolescent Latina mother-toddler dyads. Mother-toddler dyads participated in two waves when the children were aged 18 months (W1) and 24 months (W2). During W1, children’s cognitive and language abilities were measured using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development; emotion dysregulation was coded at W2. Hierarchical linear regression was used to test the effects of cognitive and language abilities in Latino children, age 18 months, and its influence on emotion dysregulation at age 24 months. After controlling for baseline levels of negative reactivity at W1, we found that cognitive abilities were not significantly associated with emotion dysregulation. In contrast, language abilities were significantly associated with emotion dysregulation, such that better language abilities were related to lower levels of emotion dysregulation.
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| Contributor(s) |
Faculty Mentor
Josefina Grau |
| Modified Abstract |
Emotion dysregulation is a key element to the development of psychopathology later in life. However, important predictors of emotion dysregulation, such as the child’s early cognitive and language development have yet to be studied in samples of Latino children of adolescent mothers. The present study consists of 149 adolescent Latina mother-toddler dyads. Mother-toddler dyads participated in two waves when the children were aged 18 months (W1) and 24 months (W2). After controlling for baseline levels of negative reactivity at W1, we found that cognitive abilities were not significantly associated with emotion dysregulation. In contrast, language abilities were significantly associated with emotion dysregulation, such that better language abilities were related to lower levels of emotion dysregulation. |