Neural processes that influence school readiness in early childhood, a key time for intervention, and the cognitive processes that explain how parenting and neural processes influence school readiness remain poorly understood. There is a critical need to determine how cognitive control and its neural underpinnings develop and how these are influenced by parenting practices. The long-term goal is to develop more effective science- based interventions for behavioral and academic problems in children. The overall objective for the proposed longitudinal project is to determine how specific parenting processes, neural processes, and cognitive control processes promote school readiness in the transition from preschool to school entry. Our central hypothesis is that delayed development of cognitive control?at neural and psychological levels?results in cognitive control deficits in early childhood that prevent automatization and lead to the downstream development of externalizing and academic problems. Ineffective parenting practices are likely a key cause of delayed development of cognitive control. The rationale for the proposed research is that a detailed understanding of mechanistic pathways that explain how parenting and neural processes influence school readiness will enable the identification of novel strategies to prevent behavioral and academic problems. Guided by strong preliminary data, we will test the central hypothesis by pursuing three specific aims: 1) Identify neural indicators of cognitive control in early childhood that predict development of school readiness, 2) Identify cognitive control processes that explain how neural processes predict school readiness, and 3) Identify parenting practices that predict development of neural processes and cognitive control.
Aim 1 will determine the extent to which response inhibition (N2 event-related potential, ERP) and novelty detection (P3 ERP) predict development of school readiness based on tests of academic skills and reports of externalizing behavior problems by parents and teachers.
Aim 2 will identify the extent to which the neural indicators of cognitive control predict cognitive control on laboratory tasks, which, in turn, lead to school readiness.
Aim 3 will determine the degree to which parenting sensitivity, autonomy support, and consistency that have been robustly associated with school readiness predict neural and cognitive control processes that, in turn, predict school readiness. The proposed research is innovative because it employs a new and transformative method of assessing cognitive control at multiple levels of analysis (neural and psychological) longitudinally and in relation to parenting and school readiness in early childhood. The proposed research is significant because it is expected to enable the design of early intervention and prevention strategies targeted to enhance children's response inhibition and novelty detection, translating to better cognitive control and school readiness. Ultimately, the results of the proposed research are expected to help develop strategies that identify and target young children at risk for a lack of cognitive control skills needed for school readiness and later success.
The proposed project is relevant to public health because early identification of behavioral and academic deficits for school readiness is crucial for timely intervention and prevention of more severe outcomes, such as conduct problems, problems with peer interactions, and school dropout. The expected results will have identified neural processes and cognitive control processes that explain how parenting practices influence children's school readiness. Thus, the proposed research is relevant to the part of the NICHD mission that all children have the chance to achieve their full potential for healthy and productive lives.
