Both current research and theory suggest that in the context of poverty, martial and family factors are important for understanding the development of child competence or disorder, protective processes, and vulnerability to the stressful life conditions associated with poverty. Infancy may be a time of particular vulnerability to disruptions in family relationships. Caregivers play a critical role in the development of children's self-regulation by sensitively responding to emotional signals of need for soothing or increased stimulation. Achievement of emotion regulation and autonomous functioning appear to underlie basic developmental competencies. Few studies address the effects of poverty on young children and their families in rural areas. Huston et al. note that this imbalance needs to be remedied in that """"""""urban-rural differences in family structure, spatial characteristics of communities, and structural functional characteristics of kin networks, among other factors, raise serious questions about the wisdom of extrapolating to the rural poor psychological processes documented in samples drawn from urban populations"""""""". As a part of a larger program project, the research proposed here seeks to redress this gap in our knowledge. For this project, 1400 children and their families will be recruited at the birth of the child from hospitals in 6 poor rural counties in the southeast and northeast (3 in North Carolina and 3 in Pennsylvania). This sample will represent a birth cohort (although oversampling of poor and African-American children will be used) of children born in an 8-month period. As such, a range of family economic conditions will be obtained. These children and their families will be seen for home visits at 2, 6, 15, 24, and 36 months after the child's birth. A combination of interview, observation and questionnaire techniques will be used to understand how family processes mediate or moderate the effects of poverty on children in rural areas.
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